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JOHN MILTON 



LIFE AND TIMES, 



RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL OPINIONS: 



AN APPENDIX, 



CONTAINING 
ANIMADVERSIONS UPON DR. JOHNSON's LIFE OF MILTON, ETC., ETC. 



BY JOSEPH IVIMEY, 

AUTHOR OF THE " HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS," &C. &C. 



" My ventralion for our great countryman is equal to what I feel for the Grecian."— Cwjjer. 
" In point of sublimity, Homer cannot be compa-ed with Mi\ion."—Bobert Hall. 



NEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON & CO., 200, BROADWAY. 

AND FOR SALE BY BOOKSELLERS GENERALLY THROUGHOUT THE 
UNITED STATES. 

M DCCC XXXIII. 






SLEIGHT & VAN NOKDEN, PRINT. 



PREFACE' 



The former biographers of MiXTON have exhibited him 
principally in his character as a poetj but have obscured 
his features as a patriot, a protestant, and non-conformist. 
The writer has attempted to give an accurate and full- 
length portrait, in all those respects, of this most em- 
inent of our countrymen. For the purpose of accom- 
plishing this design, he has made considerable extracts 
from the prose writings of Milton, by which, in a good 
degree, he appears as his own biographer. 

In reference to the character of those works, he takes 
the liberty of quoting the sentiments of the present 
Bishop of Chester, who says : — 

" There is much reason for regretting, that the prose 
works of Milton, where, in the midst of much that is 
coarse and intemperate, passages of such redeeming 
beauty occur, should be in the hands of so few readers, 



IV TREFACE. 

considering the advantages which might be derived to 
our literature from the study of their original and nervous 
eloquence."* 

The prejudice which has existed against Milton's 
prose works, on account of his republican and dissent- 
ing principles, fully accounts for their having been so 
little known ; but it is hoped that such feelings are 
rapidly subsiding, if they are not as yet become quite ex- 
tinct. On this subject, the highly respectable writer just 
quoted, says in the same preface : 

" But in happier times, when it is less difficult to make 
allowance for the efferv^escence caused by the heat of 
conflicting politics, and when the judgment is no longer 
influenced by the animosities of party, the taste of the 
age may be safely and profitably recalled to those trea- 
tises of Milton, which were not written to serve a tem- 
porary purpose." 

Correct as were these remarks eight years since, the 
writer considers them to be much more applicable to the 
present time, when the principles of civil and religious 
liberty which Milton so powerfully advocated, have been 
approved by a majority of our legislature, obtained the 
sanction of so large t portion of our united empire, and 
produced such an astonishing reform in our representa- 
tive body. 

* Preface to Treatise of Christian Doctrine, 



PREFACE. 



The unceremonious manner in which Milton has 
treated the episcopal bench will probably be disliked by 
some readers, as unnecessarily severe, and extremely un- 
courteous. Let such persons, however, recollect the 
unconstitutional and persecuting practices of Laud and 
some of his brethren in the Star.chamber, and their ser- 
vile compliances in supporting arbitrary power in Charles 
I., and they may perhaps be inclined to moderate their 
censures, if not to change their opinion. 

As to the determined efforts of Milton to prevail with 
the Parliament to abolish tithes, and to leave the estab- 
lished clergy to depend for support upon the voluntary 
contributions of their respective parishoners, his reason- 
ing has a better prospect of being regarded at the pre- 
sent than at any former period since his treatises were 
published. It may probably too give weight to his re- 
commendations, that Ms remarks applied to Presbyterian, 
and not to Episcopal " hirelings." His objection was to 
the system of tithes, because he considered it directly op- 
posed to the genius of Christianity, and as being injurious 
to the spiritual interests of the nation. 

An earnest desire that the religious and political senti- 
ments of Milton should be justly appreciated, led the 
writer to undertake this work ; and also that his Chris- 
tian integrity, manifested under all the changes through 
which he passed from 1640 to 1674, on account of the 
extraordinary revolutions of that period, should be held 



VI PREFACE. 

up as an example worthy of univers^ imitation. It will 
however be found, that the veneration which he enter- 
tains for the character of Milton, has not led him to 
overlook his faults, nor to palliate his errors. 

Another reason which prevailed with the writer was, 
that the Lives of Milton have usually been so large 
and expensive, that they have been placed out of the 
reach of the generality of readers ; he therefore hopes 
that a small volume, comprising every thing of import- 
ance respecting this noble-minded and gigantic man, will 
not be unacceptable nor unprofitable to the bulk of his 
countrymen. 

The writer cannot anticipate that the sentiments stated 
in his work will be universally acceptable ; but if they 
be approved by that large body of Britons who contend 
for liberty as their birth-right, and especially by Protes- 
tant Dissenters, it is as much as he can expect. It is a 
little singular, that no writer of the latter class has ever 
published the life of this early and powerful defender of 
their principles, notwithstanding it is to his powerful ad- 
vocacy that they are indebted, more than to any other 
writer, for all the civil and religious privileges which 
they now enjoy. From his Memoirs having been written 
by Churchmen, who must have necessarily disapproved 
of his opinions, it is not wonderful that he should have 
been charged with employing " coarse and intemperate," 
<' rude and insulting language." Let the reader how- 



PREFACE. Vll 

ever recollect the period at which his treatises were 
written, when polemics where not remarkably nice in 
their selection of epithets ; and let him consider too the 
extreme importance of the subjects of which they treat — ■ 
the welfare of the church of Christ, and the deliverance 
of the nation from civil and religious tyranny — and he 
may probably be inclined to judge more favourably of 
the strong and caustic terms which he has sometimes 
employed for the purpose of satirizing and exposing 
gross impositions and oppressive corruptions. His 
blunt and biting style exposed him to great opposition 
and reproach ; but he evidently indulged self-gratulation, 
from the reflection that he had always accustomed him- 
self to what he called "this just ond honest manner of 
speaking." The following beautiful description of Truth 
is a specimen : — 

In his ^'Areopagitica," published 1644, he says : "Truth, 
indeed, came once into the world with her Divine Master, 
and was a perfect shape, most glorious to look upon ; but 
when he ascended, and his apostles after him were laid 
asleep then strait arose a wicked race of Deceivers, who,as 
that story goes of that wicked Typhon with his conspirators, 
how thej dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin 
Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, 
and scattered them to the four winds. From that time 
ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear 
imitating the careful search which Isis made for the man- 
gled body of Osiris, went up and down, gathering up every 



viu \j^. PREFACE. 

limb still as tbev could find them. We have not vet 
found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do 
till her Master's second coming. He shall bring together 
every joint and member, and shall mould them into an 
immortE^l feature of loveliness and perfection-" 

In the " Animadversions upon Johnson's Life of Mil- 
ton" in the Appendix, there will be found a degree of se- 
verity merited, the writer thinks, by an author who suf- 
fered his ultra-toryism and bigotry so to blind his under- 
standing as to use his pen for distorting the features of a 
character which he was incapable of delineating. The 
writer would not have considered these remarks to have 
been required so long after the death of the calumniator, 
had not the obnoxious work formed part of that standard 
pubUcation, " The Lives of the British Poets." The 
amiable poet, Cowper, has justly designated Johnson's 
Life of Milton as ^^ unmerciful treatment."* Again, 
" In the last leaf of Murphy's Essay," says Hayley, " on 
the Life and Genius of Johnson, he wrote the following 
most deliberate censure : ' Let all that is said against 
Milton in the conclusion of this book pass undisputed, 
and Johnson's is a most malignant life of Milton.' "f 

The writer has also taken the liberty to copy into the 

* Sketch of the Life of Cowper, prefixed to his posthumous poems, p 
xxxiii. 

t Latin and Itahan Poems of Milton, translated by Cowper, Preface 
and Notes by W. Hayley, Esq. 



PREFACE. IX 

Appendix, from the Rev. Mr. Todd's ." Account of Mil- 
ton," &;c. published in 1828, the Extracts from the Coun- 
cil Book while Milton was Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 
and which will throw considerable light upon several 
events connected with his history. 

Imploring the blessing of the Great Head of the Church 
to rest upon this humble effort to subserve His glory, by 
causing it to promote the cause of truth and righteousness, 
the writer, with much respect, dedicates it to the rising 
generation in Britain ; earnestly praying they may prove 
themselves a superior race to their most distinguished 
progenitors, whether of genuine patriots, unsophisticated 
Protestants, or real Christians, and thus contribute towards 
promoting the prosperity of their country in its highest 
and most essential interests — a country respecting which 
in many respects, it might be said, as it is of ancient 
Israel, "The Lord hath not dealt so with any 

PEOPLE." 

J. I. 

1, Devonshire Street, Queen Square, 
Dec. 2lst, 1832. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

1608—1640 

Milton's parents.— Bom in London.— His^tutors.— Incredible ad- 
vances in learning.— Sent to Cambridge.— Early productions.— Ob- 
tains a degree.— Leaves the University.— Returns to his father's 
house.— PubUshes a Latin Elegy. — ^His Comus and Lycidas publish- 
ed.— Loses his mother.— Resolves to make the tour of Europe.— Intro- 
duced to persons of distinction.— Visits Rome and Naples.— His 
Protestant zeal.— Returns to Rome.— Danger from English Jesuits.— 
Visits Galileo in the Inquisition at Florence.— Arrives at Venice and 
Geneva. — Returns to England on account of the Civil War.— State 
of the Church under Laud, and persecution of the Puritans. Page 
17—26. 

CHAPTER II. 

1640—1644. 

Milton's arrival in London.— Commences schoolmaster. — Re- 
proached on that account. — Vindicated by Toland. — Inconsolable 
because of the death of Diodati.— ^Writes against the Bishops. — Two 
Books on the Reformation from Popery .--Prayer to the Trinity in Uni- 
ity. — Declaration of his motives in writing. — Conduct of the Bishops. 
— Admiration of the Reformation. — Appeal to the united EngHsh and 
Scotch nations, — Origin of Antichrist. — Publishes on Prelatical Epis- 



Xll CONTENTS. 

copacy against Usher. — Reason of Church Government urged 
against Prelacy. — Animadversions on a work of Bishop Hall. — Sen- 
timents respecting Liturgies. — Church corrupted by Constantine. — 
His opinion of the Fathers — and of Tithes, — A tale of the Head and 
Wen. — Replies to a Libel. — His contempt for the Bishops. — Re- 
marks. •> Page 27—50. 

CHAPTER III. 
1644—1648. 

Smollett's* Account of the origin or the Civil War. — A different 
Account by Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson. — State of the Prelates. — Origin 
of Congregational Churches in London. — Notes. — Dispute between 
the House of Lords and commons respecting the Prelates. — Bish- 
ops excluded from their seats in Parliament. — Milton publishes his 
Areopagitica. — Charged with printing scandalous books. — ^Persecu- 
ting spirit of Presbyterian Assembly. — Eloquent description of the 
Liberty of the Press. — He is married. — Left by his wife. — Publishes 
four Tracts on Divorce. — They are reconciled. — Remarks on his con- 
duct and principles. — Bishop Hall's opinion. — Note. — Milton belong- 
ed to the Baptist Denomination. — Sonnet. — Death of his father. — Re- 
\wes his Academy. — Sonnet. — Appointed Latin Secretary. — Satiri- 
cal Poem addres sed to the Presbyterians. Page 51 — 98. 

CHAPTER IV. 

1648—1653. 

Presbyterians oppose the execution of the King. — Testimony of 
Neale. — Mistake corrected, (note) — Milton pubUshes Tenure of 
Kings and Magistrates after the death of Charles I.— His description 
of the Presbyterian magistrates, and ministers. — Enemies to liberty 
of Conscience. — House of Lords voted to be useless. — Office of King 
voted to be dangerous to liberty. — Council of State. — Milton com- 
mences the history of England. — Appointed Latin Secretary to the 
Council. — Publishes his Eiclonocastes. — Eikon Basilike an im- 

* The writer, by mistake, has in "this Cliapter used the name of Hume instead 
o( Smollett. 



CONTENTS. Xm 

posture. — Milton publishes a reply to the Irish Presbyterians. — 
Writes a reply to Salmasius. — Publishes his Second Defence. — Re- 
ply to Peter Du Moulin, who had reproached him on account of his 
blindness. — Sonnet on his blindness. — Letter on the same subject to 
Leonard Philarus. — Lines addressed to Cyriac Skinner. — He defends 
himself against Morus. — Appointed Latin Secretary to the Protector. 
Page 98— 13i. 

CHAPTER V. 

1653—1660. 

Oliver Cromwell appointed Lord Pi'otector. — Milton's reason for 
approving Cromwell's conduct. — Sonnet on his character. — Protec- 
tor's principles as to liberty of conscience, Note. — Milton's eulogy on 
his character. — Loss of his two wives. — Sonnet. — Publishes his 
Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, and Considerations 
to remove Hirelings, &c. — Death of Oliver Cromwell. — Publishes on 
the Ruptures of the Commonwealth ; and the ready and safe way to 
establish a free Commonwealth. — Letter to General Monk. — Brief 
Notes upon a Sermon entitled, ' The fear of God and the King.' 
Page 132—166. 

CHAPTER VI. 
1655—1658. 

The Duke of Savoy persecutes the Waldenses. — Cromwell's noble 
conduct. — Milton's Sonnet. — Cromwell's intention to found a Protes- 
tant Council.— Milton's State Letters: — The Protector to the Prince 
of Tarentum, to the Duke of Savoy, to the Prince of Transilvania, to 
the king of the Swedes, to the States of the United Provinces, to the 
Evangelick States of Switzerland, to the King of France, to Cardinal 
Mazarine, to the King of Denmark, to the Senators of the City of 
Geneva, to the Cities of Switzerland, to the King of the Swedes, to 
the States of the United Provinces, to the King of the Swedes, to 
the King of Denmark, &c., to the Landgrave of Hesse, to the King 
of the Swedes, to the heir of Norway, to the Marquis of Branden- 
2 



XIV CONTENTS. 

burgh, to the King of France, to the Cities of the Switzers, to Car- 
dinal Mazarin — Richard, Protector, to the King of the Swedes. — 
The Parliament to the King of the Swedes, to the King of Denmark. 
Page 167—117, 

CHAPTER VII. 
1660—1674. 

Restoration of Charles II. — Milton secretes himself. — ^Sonnet. — 
Anecdote. — Two of his works burnt. — Secured by act of Oblivion. — 
Exemplifies the Character of Abdiel. — Marries his third wife. — Re- 
moves to Chalfont. — Thomas Elhvood and Paradise Lost. — Extracts 
from that inimitable Poem. — Anecdote of Milton. — Anecdote of the 
Duke of York. — Paradise Regained. — Samson Agonistes. — Letter 
to Peter Heimbach. — His Treatise on True Religion. — Andrew 
Marvell. — Respect shown to Milton. — His death and funeral. — 
His person and character. — His will.— His widow and daughters. — 
Original Letter of Mr. George Vertue. — Monuments. — Treatise of 
Christian Doctrine. — Extracts. — Remarks. — List of works. Page 21S, 

APPENDIX. 

Animadversions on Dr. Johnson's Life of Milton.— Proclamation 
against Milton. — Extracts from Council Book respecting Milton. 
Page 267—300. 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



CHAPTER L 

1608—1740. 

This most extraordinary man, this prince of English poets, 
this consistent champion of civil and religious liberty, was 
the son of John Milton and Sarah Caston ; they had two 
other children, Anna, who married Edward Philips ; and 
Christopher, bred to the common law. 

Mr. John Milton was born in Bread-street, in the city 
af London, December 9, 1608,* descended of an ancient 
family of that name at Milton, near Abingdon, in Oxford, 
shire, Where it had been a long time settled as appears 
from the monument still to be seen in the church of Mil- 
ton ; till one of the family having taken the unfortunate 
side in the contest between the houses of York and Lan- 
caster, was sequestered of all his estate, except what he 
held by his wife. The poet's grandfather, whose name 
also was John Milton, was under ranger, or keeper, of 
the forest of Shotover, near Horton, in Oxfordshire, he 
being a zealous papist. His father was a polite man, a 
gi-eat master of music, and, by profession, a scrivener, in 
which calling, through his diligence and honesty, he got 
a competent estate in a short time ; for he was disinherited 

♦ "The 20th day of December, 1608, was baptisedJohn.the son of John 
Mylton, Bcrivener."— Extract from the Registry of All-hallows, Bread- 
street, 

3 



18 LIFE OF MILTON. 

by his bigoted parents for embracing the Protestant reli- 
gion, and abjuring the popish idolatry. He lived at the 
sign of the Spread Eagle, (the armorial bearings of the 
family,) in Bread-street. Of his mother, it is said, "she 
was a woman of incomparable virtue and goodness." 
John Milton was destined to be a scholar : and partly 
under domestic tutors, (whereof one was Thomas Young,* 
to whom the first of his familiar letters is inscribed; and 
afterwards, Dr. Gill, the chief master of Paul's School, 
to whom, likewise, the fifth of the same letters is inscribed,) 
he made an incredible progress in the knowledge of words 
and thingSjhis diligence and inclination outstripping the care 
of his instructors ; and after he was twelve years of age, 
such was his insatiable thirst for learning, that he seldom 
went to bed before midnight. Being thus initiated into 
several tongues, and having not slightly tasted the inex- 
pressible sweets of philosophy, he was sent, at the age of 
fifteen, to Christ's College, in Cambridge to pursue more 
arduous and solid studies. 

In the same year he gave several proofs of his early 
genius for poetry. His first essay was to translate some 
psalms into English verse, whereof the 114th thus com- 
mences : 

" When the bless'd seed of Terah's faithful son, 
After long- toil their liberty had won ; 
And past from Pharian fields to Canaan land, 
Led by the strencjth of the Almighty's hand ; 
Jehovah's wonders were in Israel shown, 
His praise and glory was in Israel known." 

In his seventeenth year, he wrote a handsome copy of 
verses on a child of his sister, who had died of a consump- 
tion. In this year also he composed a Latin Elegy on the 

* He was afterwards chaplain to the English merchants at Hamburgh. 
His pupil dedicated a poem to him. Aubrey calls him "a Puritan in Es- 
sex, who cutt his hair short." 



LIFE OF MILTO5I. 19 

death of the Bishop of Winchester, and another on that 
of the Bishop of Ely ; and about the same time he com- 
posed his fine poem on the Gunpowder Treason Plot. Of 
these juvenile productions Marohof* says: " That Mil- 
ton's writings show him to have been a man from his 
childhood ; and that these poems are exceedingly above 
the ordinary capacity of that age." 

He spent seven years at Cambridge, " where he lived 
with great reputation, and was generally beloved. But 
having obtained the degree of Master of Arts, in 1632, 
and performed his exercises with much applause, he left 
the university ; for he aimed not at any of those learned 
professions that require a longer stay in that place." 
Some of his academic performances are still extant among 
his occasional poems, and at the end of his familiar let- 
ters. He.was now twenty-four years of age. From this Y 
time till 1537 he lived at his father's house, at Horton, 
near Colebrook, in Buckinghamshire : here he had full 
oppDrtunity to peruse all the Greek and Latin writers. 
He was not, however, so much in love with solitude but 
that he frequently visited London for the purpose of pur- 
chasing books, and to meet his old friends from the uni- 
versity ; or to learn something new in the mathematics, 
or in music, in which he extraordinarily delighted. It 
was during this period that he wrote, while in London, the 
Latin Elegy to his intimate friend Chahles Diodati, 
wherein were some verses which expressed his preference 
of the pleasures of London to the drudgery of the univer- 
sity. " It was on this account," says Toland, " that some 
persons, no less ignorant than malicious, afterwards took 
a handle to assert, that he was either expell-ed for some 
misdemeanour from Cambridge, or that he left it in dis- 
content, because he obtained no preferment ; or that he 

♦ In his Polyhistar JUUeraturius. 



20 LIFE OF MILON. 

spent his time in London with lewd women, or at the 
play-houses ; but," he adds, " the falsity of this story, we 
shall in due place demonstrate." 

His first work of consequence was written and enacted 
in 1634. This was his " Comus," entitled " A Maske, 
presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, on Michaelmass night, 
before the Right Honourable John, Earl of Bridgewater, 
Viscount Brackly, Lord President of Wells, and one of 
his Majesty's most honourable Privy Counsell."* In the 
year 1637 he wrote the inimitable poem called " Lyci- 
das," of which the manuscript is still preserved inthe 
Egyptian Library, Trinity College, Cambridge. 

The death of his mother happened about this time, so 
that he felt himself at liberty to carry into effect his fa- 
vourite object ; and having obtained his father's consent, 
he resolved to make the tour of Europe. His reason for 
wishing to travel in foreign countries, is quaintly ex- 
pressed by Toland, to have been a persuasion, " that he 
could not better discern the pre-eminence or defect3 of 
his own country, than by observing the customs and 
institutions of others; and that the study of never so 
many books, without the advantages of conversation, 
serves either to render a man a stupid fool, or an insuf- 
ferable pedant." 

In 1638, he went to France, accompanied by a servant, 
but by no tutor : " For," says his biographer, " such as 
still need a pedagogue are not fit to go abroad : and those 
who are able to make a right use of their travels, ought 
to be the free masters of their own actions, their good 
qualifications being sufficient to introduce them into all 
places, and to present them to the most deserving per- 
sons." 

*"Londu7i: printed fur Humphrey Robinson, at the sign of the 
Three Pi^eoiis, in Paul's Church Yard.— 1637." 



LIFE OF MILTON. 21 

It affords full proof of the high respectability of the 
character of Miltox, that he was favoured with an ele- 
gant letter of direction and advice from the famous Sir 
Henry Wotton, who was a long time ambassador from 
James the First to the Republic of Venice. When he 
arrived at Paris, he was most kindly received by the Eng- 
lish ambassador, Lord Scudamore, who recommended 
him to the famous Groxius, who was then ambassador to 
the French Court, from Christina, Queen of Sweden. 
From France he proceeded to Italy, where, after having 
passed through many noted places, he came at length to 
Florence : " A city, for the politeness of the language, 
and the civility of the inhabitants, he always after infi- 
nitely admired." In this city he staid about two months, 
and was daily assisting at those learned conferences 
which they held in their private academies, according to 
the laudable custom of Italy, both for the improvement of 
letters, and the maintaining of friendship. " During this 
time he contracted an intimate acquaintance with several 
ingenious men : " most of whom," says Toland, " have 
since made a noise in the world, and deserve a mention 
in this place ; I mean Gaddi, Dati, Frescobaldi, Fran- 
cini, Bonmattei, Coltellino, Chimentelli, and seve- 
ral others. With these he kept up a constant corres- 
pondence, particularly with Carolo Dati, a nobleman 
of Florence, to whom he wrote the tenth of his familiar 
letters." 

From Florence he went next to Rome, where he resided 
two months, and witnessed the miserable remains of that 
once famous city, the mistress of the world. "And," 
says Toland, " deservedly so ; being then not only the 
fairest place under heaven, but, until the ambition of a 
few persons had corrupted her equal government, she 
extended liberty and learning as far as the glory of her 
3* 



22 LIFE OF MILTON. 

name and the terror of her arms. Here, no doubt," re- 
marks his biographer, " all the examples which he had 
read of the virtue, eloquence, wisdom, and valour of her 
ancient citizens, occurred to his mind ; and must have 
oppressed his generous soul with grief, when he saw 
Rome, the chief seat of the most exquisite tyranny, exer- 
cised by effeminate priests, not governing the world by 
the opinion formed of their justice, or power, being afraid 
of their courage, (for to these qualities they are known 
and sworn enemies), but deluding men with unaccounta- 
ble fables, and terrifying them by imaginary fears; filling 
-their heads with superstition, and filling their own pockets 
with the money of their credulous votaries." 

At Rome, Milton made the acquaintance of several 
eminently learned men, as the celebrated Lucas Hol- 
STENius, the hbrarian of the Vatican, who showed him 
great politeness, and permitted him to read all the Greek 
authors under his care. This gentleman presented him 
to Cardinal Barberini, who, at an entertainment of mu- 
sic performed at the Cardinal's expense, sought him out 
in the crowd, and gave him a kind invitation to visit him. 
He likewise commenced a friendship with the poet, Gio- 
vanni Salsilli. 

Having departed from Rome, he went to Naples, and 
was introduced by his fellow-traveller, a hermit, to Gio- 
VANNi Battista Manso, Marquis o-f Villa, a person most 
nobly descended, who accompanied Milton round the 
city, showing him all the remarkable places in it, and 
visited him often at his lodging. He also composed a 
Latin distich, which he addressed to Milton r 

" Ut 7ncns forma, decor, fades, mos ; si pietas sic, 
Noil Anghis, vcrum, lierclc, Angelus ipse fores." 

" Did yovir piety equal your talents, form, countenance, grace, and 
manners,— you were not so much an Englishman, by Hercules, as an 
angel. 



LIFE OF MILTON. 23 

The exception, in regard to his piety, relates to Milton 
being a Protestant, and to the courage with which he had 
avowed, and doubtless defended, his principles. The 
marquis, indeed, told him, " he would have done him 
many other good offices, had he been more reserved in 
matters of religion" From this very brief mention of the 
frankness and courage of our Protestant poet, we may 
safely infer that his mind was at this time well informed 
as to the all-important principles of Protestantism, and 
that he felt a detestation of the idolatroui^principles and 
superstitious practices of the Antichristian Church of 
Rome. It is fair to infer also, that his courageous con- 
duct, even in the city upon seven hills, where Antichrist 
was seated in all4his glory, and where his flattering, 
cringing sycophants were shouting, " who is like unto 
the Beast ?" arose from his heart having been renewed 
by the Holy Spirit of God ; for one can scarcely conceive 
it possible that any other principle than that of the fear 
of God having been put into his heart, could have pro- 
duced such fearless confidence and such dauntless zeal/ 
In return for the many favours which Milton had re- 
ceived from a person of Manso's rank, he presented him, 
at his departure from Naples, notwithstanding the cautious 
scruples by which this kindness was qualified, with an in- 
comparable Latin eclogue, entitled Mansus ; which is 
extant among his occasional pieces. 

He had intended, and was making preparations to pass 
over into Sicily and Greece, when he wa s rec alled by the 
sad news of a civil war beginning at home ; and " deem- 
ing it a thing," says his nephew Philips, " unworthy of 
him to be diverting himself in security abroad, when his 
countrymen were contending with an insidious monarch 
for their liberty, he resolved to give up his further travels, 



24 LIFE OF MILTOPT. 

and, with his noble compatriots, to jeopard his life on the 
high places of the field." 

Before returning to England, however, he made up his 
mind again to visit Rome, though he was advised by some 
merchants to the contrary ; for they had learned from 
their correspondents, that the English Jesuits were framing 
plots against him, on account of the great freedom he 
used in his conversations on the subject of religion. He 
therefore resolved not to commence any disputes with the 
Papists, but w^s determined, whatever might happen, not 
to dissemble his sentiments. He went again to the city 
of Antichrist, and continued there two months, neither 
conceahng his name, nor declining to defend openly the 
truth, under the Pope's eye, when any thought fit to attack 
him ; and notwithstanding his danger, he returned safely 
to his friends at Florence. Toland remarks, in connexion 
with the above statement : " I forgot all this while to 
mention, that he paid a visit to Galileo, then an old man, 
and a prisoner in the Inquisition, for thinking contrary in 
astronomy, than pleased the Dominican and Franciscan 
friars." 

Having spent two months more in Florence, and visited 
Lucca, Bononia, and Ferrara^ he arrived in safety at 
Venice. Here he spent one month ; and shipping off all 
the books which he had collected in his travels, he came 
through Verona, Milan, crossed the Alps, and proceeded 
by the lake Leman to Geneva. In this city he contracted 
an intimate acquaintance with Giovanni Diodati, a noted 
professor of divinity, and became well known to several 
other eminent men ; particularly to the celebrated critic 
and antiquary, Ezekiel Spanhemius, to whom he wrote 
the seventeenth of his familiar letters. So leaving Ge- 
neva, and passing again through France, after one year 
and three months' travels, he returned safely to England, 



LIFE OF MILTON. 25 

arriving at home about the time that king Charles the 
First made his second expedition against the Scotch. 

The reader will have observed the proofs of the high- 
minded Protestant, which have been briefly stated, in the 
conduct of this noble youth — for he was scarcely more, 
being now only thirty-two years of age; — and if the 
reader is well acquainted with the state of society at that 
time, as regarded the Established Church of England 
when XawcZ* was persecuting the Puritans with such re- 
lentless and unheard-of cruelties, for da'ring to refuse 
worshipping the golden image of episcopacy which the 
king had set up ; — if he is acquainted, too, with the nu- 
merous instances in which this Arminian prelate sympa- 
thised with Popery ; and how fast the Church of England 
was going back towards Rome, both in her ceremonies 
and the new exposition of her articles ; — if he know, also, 
how tyrannical were the decisions of the star-chamber 
and high-commission courts, in reference to any thing 
which approached to the assertion of either civil or reli- 
gious liberty, he will then form some conception of the 
danger into which Milton voluntarily ran, by returning 
at such a time to his beloved native country ; indicating 

♦"Laud's superstition," says Mr. Wilson, Appendix 517, "however 
offensive to common sense, was tolerable, when named with his cruelties. 
These chill the blood with horror. No man, possessed of the common 
sympathies of human nature, can read the sufTerings of Prynne, Lilburn, 
Burton, Bastwick, and Leighton, without being satisfied that the monster's 
heart was steeled against every feeling of Immanity. These severities 
occasioned numbers to leave the kingdom, until the king ordered that none 
should depart without the permission of this miscreant." This witness is 
true ; and to this I add, what proved to be the most marvellous providence, 
that Laud prevented Oliver Cromwell, John Hampden, and other patriots, 
from going to America, to which they had made up their minds, and had 
actually embarked, in order to transport themselves, but an order of council 
prevented them. The excellent Dr. Owen, too, would have gone, but for 
the same prevention. 



26 LIFE OF MILTON. 

a spirit similar to that displayed by the brave men who 
perished at Thermopylae and Marathon ; or, like the few 
noble citizens of Calais, who devoted themselves to perish, 
in order to save their fellows from destruction ! This was 
indeed to manifest the true Protestant, and the true pa- 
triot. Courage and philanthropy indeed ! which nothing 
short of " being valiant for the truth," even when fallen 
to the earth, and trampled beneath the feet of contemp- 
tuous men, could sustain : which the votaries of high 
church, with their half papistical dogmas, flitting in the 
sun of courtly prosperity, could no more have displayed, 
than they could have emulated his powerful intellect ; to 
have even attempted which, would only have manifested 
their folly, and exposed themselves in their spleen to the 
fate of Esop's " Proud Frogs." 



LIFE OP MILTON. 27 

CHAPTER II. 

1640—1644. 

Arriving in London, as soon as he had receiving the 
congratulations of his friends and acquaintances, he hired 
a handsome lodging in St. Bride's Court, Fleet Street, at 
the house of Mr. Russel, a tailor, which might be an 
asylum for himself and a safe depository for his library, 
in those uncertain and troublesome time. He soon after 
removed to Aldersgate-street, at the end of the passage, 
where he also commenced his work of tuition.* Whilst 



*Toland is very angry that some persons, " mean tutors in a university," 
m order to reproach Milton, had called him a schoolmaster. Not to inter- 
rupt the course of my narrative, I throw the vindication of Milton, by his 
biographer, into a note: — "But to return to his lodgings, where we had 
left him. I'here, both to be used in the reading of the best authors, and to 
discharge his duty to his sister's sons, that were partly committed to his 
tuition, he undertook the care of their education, and instructed them in 
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and other oriental dialects : likewise in several 
parts of the mathematics, in cosmography, history, and some modern lan- 
guages, as French and Italian. Some gentlemen of his intimate friends, 
and to whom he could deny nothing, prevailed on him to impart the same 
benefits of learning to their sons ; especially since the trouble [of teaching 
the Latin] was no more with many than with few. He that well knew 
the greatest persons in all ages to have been delighted with teaching others 
the principles of knowledge and virtue, easily complied ; nor was his suc- 
cess unanswerable to the opinion which is generally entertained of his ca- 
pacity. And not content to acquaint his disciples with those books that are 
commonly used in the schools, whereof several, no doubt, are excellent in 
their kind, though others are as trivial or impertinent, he made them, like- 
wise, read in Latin the ancient authors concerning husbandry : as Cato^ 
Varro, Columella, and Palladius ; also Cornelius Celsus the physician ; 
Pliny's Natural History ; the architecture of Vitruvius ; the stratagems 
of Frontinus ; and the philosophical poets, Lucretius and Manilius. To 
the usual Greek books, as Homer and Hesiod, he added Aratus, Dionysius 
Perigetes, Oppian, Quintus Calaber, Apollonius Rhodius, Plutarch, 
Xenophon, JElian's Tactics, and the stratagems of Polycenus. It was 



28 LIFE OF MILTON. 

absent from England, his dearest friend and school-fellow, 
Charles Diodati, had been removed by death ; and for 
a long time he continued inconsolable on that account. 
This even is commemorated by him in an eclogue, in the 
most pathetic strains that affectionate sorrow could sug- 
gest. 

The state of the nation at this time he thus describes : 
" On my return from my travels, I found all mouths open 
against the Bishops ; some complaining of their vices, 
and others quarrelling with the very order : and thinking, 
from such beginnings, a way might be opened to true 
liberty, I hastily engaged in the dispute, as well to rescue 
my fellow.citizens from slavery, as to help the Puritan 
ministers, who were inferior to the Bishops in learning."* 

this greatest sign of a good man in him, and the highest obhgations he 
could lay upon his friends, without any sordid or mercenary "purposes^ 
that gave occasion to his adversaries with opprobiously terming him a 
schoolmaster^ &c. &c. It is humorous to find his high church, pamphlet- 
eering university opponents, fixing upon such a charge as a matter of re- 
proach ! One amuses oneself in thinking, how many there might have 
probably been of these "jolly, plump, well-fed city dogs," whose "master 
fed them well, and brought the food himself, only on condition of their 
being tied up a day, and that to make them tame ; and at nighty just to 
guard the house and keep it from thieves." Who among them, even if 
they had been qualified, would have undertaken, upon Milton's terms, to 
have been his assistant 1 If Milton was poor and unknown, he had no 
"crease in his neck." — See Esop's Fable, No. xix. 

♦ In a volume, entitled "Clarendon and Whiilocke compared," published 
in 1727, the author having repelled (p. 81) the mean and unsupported 
assertion of Clarendon, who has said, " I am confident there was not, from 
the beginning of the Parliament, one orthodox or learned man recommended 
by them (the Assembly) to the Church of England," proceeds to mention 
some : four of them, who, after the Restoration, accepted of bishopricks — 
Dr. Seth Ward, Dr. John Gaudin, Dr. John WiJkins, and' Dr. Edward 
Reignolds; also, Drs. John Conant, Cave, Usher, Gataker, Tuekney, 
Lightfoot, Wincop, Gouge, Twisse, Manton, Bolton, Pool, Jacomb, and 
Bates. Of the latter of these the writer (the author of the Critical History 



LIFE OF MILTON. 29 

One of his biographers. Birch, says : " His zeal for liberty 
in general therefore engaged him in a warm opposition 
to episcopal authority. He, in the first place, published 
two books on the Reformation from Popery, which were 
dedicated to a friend. In the first of these he proved, 
from the reign of Henry the Eighth, what had all along 
been the real impediments in the kingdom to a perfect 
Reformation. These he reduces to two heads ; the^rst, 
the pop ish ce remonies which had been retained in the 
Protestant church ; and the second, the power of ordina- 
tion to the ministry having been confined to diocesian 
Bishops, to the exclusion of the choice of ministers by 
the suffrages of the people. ' Our ceremonies,' he says, 
* are senseless in themselves, and serve for nothing else 
but either to facilitate our return to Popery, or to hide the 
defects of better knowledge, and to set off the pomp of 
prelacy.' As a specimen of his style and manner, I ex- 
tract a few paragraphs : — 

" Sir, — Amidst those deep and retired thoughts, which, 
with every man, Christianly instructed, ought to be most 
frequent, of God^ and of his miraculous ways and works 
amongst men, and of our religion arid worJcs, performed to 
him ; after the story of our Saviour Christ, suffering to 

of England) remarks : *' Dr. Bates, for learning, eloquence, beauty o. 
thought, style, and life, is without parallel, except we might compare wit 
him his fast friend, the Most Reverend Dr. Tillotson, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury. When such men as these are characterised, as by Lord Clarendon 
seditious and schismatical, what must we think of those that are, in the 
same page, perhaps, termed orthodox and pious I Besides the deficiency 
here as to truth^ how deficient is it in charity! How different from those 
truly orthodox Fathers and Pastors of our Church, who maintained a 
brotherly temper with scrupulous Protestants, after the Uniformity Act 
had made their relig-ion what the Earl makes it — schism and sedition! I 
was infinitely pleased," adds this writer, "with a certificate, signed as 
follows : (Calamy, vol. ii. p. 10.) John Tillotson, Benjamin Whitchcock, 
Kdward Stillingjieet^ Matthew Pool, Thomas Gouge," 

4 




LIFE OF MILTON. 



the lowest bent of weakness in the Jiesh, and presently 
triumphing to the highest pitch o^ glory in the spirit, which 
drew up his body also, till we, in both, be united to him, 
in the revelation of his kingdom : I do not know of any 
thing to take up the whole passion of pity on the one side, 
and joy on the other, than to consider, first, the foul and 
sudden corruption, and then, after many a tedious age, 
the long deferred but much more wonderful and happy 
reformation of the Church in these latter days." Speak- 
ing of the Popish corruptions, he thus satirizes them : 
"They hallowed it, [religion,] they fumed it, they 
sprinkled it, they bedeck't it, not in robes of pure inno- 
cency, but of pure linen, with other deformed and fan- 
tastic dresses, in palls and mitres, gold and guegaws, 
fetched from AarorCs old warehouse, or the Flamin^s 
Vestry ; there was the Priest sent to con his motions, and 
his postures, his Liturgies, and his Lurries, till the soul, 
by this means of embodying herself, given up justly to 
fleshly delights, bent her wing apace downward ; and 
finding the ease she had from her visible and sensuous 
colleague, the body, in the performance of religious du- 
ties, her pinions now broken and flagging, shifted off" from 
herself the labour of high-soaring any more, forgot her 
heavenly flight, and left the dull and droyling carcass to 
plod on in the old road, and drudging trade of outward 
conformity." 

He thus describes Wicklif 's preaching, " at which," 
he says, " all the succeeding reformers more effectually 
lighted their tapers ;" who " was to his countrymen a 
short blaze, soon dampt and stifl 'd by the Pope and pre- 
lates for six or seven kings' reigns." 

To prove that the Reformation owed nothing to the 
Prelates, he says : " And for the Bishops, they were so 
far from any such worthy attempts, as that they suffered 



LIFE OF MILTON. 31 

themselves to be the common stiles to countenance, with 
their prostituted gravities, every politick fetch that was 
then on foot, as oft as the potent statists pleased to employ 
them. To bring down the Protector, [Somerset,] Lati- 
mer was employed to defame him with the people ; who 
else, 'twas thought, would take ill the innocent man's 
death, unless the reverend bishop could assure them there 
was no foul play." 

"As for the queen herself," (Elizabeth,) he says, 
" she was made believe, that, by putting down BishopSy 
her prerogative would be infringed ; and why the Prelates 
laboured, it should be so thought, ask not them, but ask 
their bellies. They had found a good tabernacle ; they 
sate under a spreading vine ; their lot was fallen in a fair 
inheritance." 

" To the votaries of antiquity ^^^ he says, " I think I shall 
have fully answered, if I shall be able to prove out of an- 
tiquity, first, that if they will conform our Bishops to the 
purer times, they must mow their feathers, and their 
pounces, and make but curb-tailed bishops of them ; and 
we know they hate to be dockt and dipt, as much as to 
be put down outright. Secondly, that those poorer times 
were corrupt, and their books corrupted ; save often, 
thirdly, that the best of those that then wrote, disclaim 
that any man should repose on them, and send all to the 
scriptures." 

" Then flourished the church," says he, " with Con- 
stantine's wealth ; and therefore were the effects thatToT- 
lowed : his son Constantius proved a flat Arian, and his 
nephew Julian an apostate ; and there his race ended. 
The church, that before, by insensible degrees, walked 
and impaired, now with large steps, went downhill, decay- 
ing ; at which time Antichrist began first to put forth his 
horn, and that saying was common, that former times had 



32 LIFE OF MILTON. 

wooden chalices and golden priests, but they golden 
chalices and wooden priests. ^^ 

The second book on Reformation begins thus : — 

" Sir,— It is a work, good and prudent, to be able to 
guide one man ;. of larger extended virtue, to order well 
one house ; but to govern a nation piously and justly, 
which only is to say happily, is for a spirit of the greatest 
size and the divinest mettle. 

" Now for their second conclusion, — That no form of 
church government is agreeable to Monarchy, hut that of 
Bishops ; although it fall to pieces of itself, by that which 
hath bin said ; yet, to give them play, front and rear, it 
shall be my task to prove that Episcopacy, with that au- 
thority which it challenges in England, is not only not 
agreeable, but tending to the destruction of monarchy." 

As a proof of the pious spirit which he manifested in 
writing this work, take the following most scriptural 
prayer ; containing, as the reader will perceive, distinct 
addresses to each person in the ever blessed Trinity in 
Unity. "Thou therefore thatsitst in light and glory un- 
approachable. Parent of angels and men ! Next, Thee 
I implore. Omnipotent King, Redeemer of that lost rem- 
nant, whose nature thou didst assume ; ineffable and ever- 
lasting Love ! And Thou, the Third subsistence of Divine^ 
Infinitude, Illuminating Spirit, the joy and solace of 
created things. One tri-personal Godhead, — look upon 
this, thy poor, and almost spent and expiring church ; 
leave her not thus a prey to those importunate wolves, 
that wait and think long, till they devour thy tender flock ; 
these wild boars that have broken into thy vineyard, and 
left the prints of iheir polluted hoofs upon the souls of thy 
servants. O let them not bring about their damned de- 
signs, that stand now at the entrance of the bottomless 
pit, expecting the watchword, to let out those dreadful 



LIFE OF MILTON. 33 

locusts and scorpions, to reinvolve us in that pitchy cloud 
of infernal darkness, where we shall never more see the 
Sun of thy truth again, never hope for the cheerful dawn, 
never more hear the bird of morning sing. Be moved 
with pity at the afflicted state of this our shaken monarchy, 
that now lies labouring under her throes, and struggling 
against the grudges of more dreadful calamities." 

It is gratifying to hear him thus state the purity of his 
motives in this admirable work. " And herewithal I in- 
voke the immortal Deity, reveler and judge of hearts, 
that wherever I have in this book, plainly and roundly 
(though worthily and truly) laid open the faults of Fathers, 
Martyrs, or Christian Emperors ; or have otherwise in- 
veighed against error and superstition, with vehement ex- 
pressions ; I have done it, neither out of malice, nor lust 
to speak evil, nor any vain glory, but of mere necessity, 
to vindicate the spotless truth from an ignominious bon- 
dage, whose native worth is now become of such low 
esteem, that she is like to find small credit with us for 
what she can say, unless she can bring a ticket from 
Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley ; or prove herself a re- 
tainer to Constantine, and wear his badge. More toler- 
able it were for the church of God, that all those names 
were utterly abolisht, like the Brazen Serpent, than that 
men's opinions should thus idolize them, and the heavenly 
truth be thus captivated." 

As for the Bishops, he says that he denied not but many 
of them had been good men, though not infallible, nor 
above all human frailties. He affirmed; however, that, 
though at the beginning they had renounced the Pope, 
yet they had hugged the Popedom, and shared the author- 
ity among themselves, '* by their six bloody Articles, per- 
secuting the Protestants no slacker than the Pope would 

have done»" He again states, that, in the reign of Eb- 

4* 



34 LIFE OF MILTON. 

WARD the Sixth, they lent themselves as the tools of the 
semi-popish king's ministers, to accomplish every politic 
fetch that was then on foot. If a toleration for mass were 
to be begged of the king for bis sister Mary, lest Charles 
the Fifth should be angry, who but the grave prelates 
Cranmer and Ridley, should be sent to extort it from 
the young king ? But out of the mouth of that godly and 
royal child, Christ himself returned such an awful repulse 
to those killing and time-serving prelates, that after much 
bold importunity, they went their way, not without sham© 
and tears. "And when tlie Lord Sudley, Admiral of 
England, and the Protector's brother, was- wrongfully to 
lose his life, no man could be found fitter than Latimer 
to divulge, in his sermon, the forged accusations laid to 
his charge, thereby to defame him with the people. Cran- 
mer, one of king Henry's executors, and the other Bish- 
ops did, to gratify the ambition of a traytor, consent to 
exclude from the succession, not only Mary, the Papist, 
but also Elizabeth, the Protestant, though before declar- 
ed by themselves the lawful issue of their late master." 

Speaking of the reign of Elizabeth,, he stilL imputes 
the obstructions of a further Reformation to the Bishops, 
and then proceeds to prove from antiquity, that, in the 
primitive church, elections to ecclesiastical offices be- 
longed to the people. " But," he added, " in those early: 
ages, after the Apostles' days, even if they favoured epis- 
copacy, it would not much concern the age in which we 
live ; because, since the best times were speediiy infec- 
ted, the best men of those times were fouLy tainted, and 
the best writings of those men dangerously adulterated ;" 
all which propositions he labours to prove at large, and in 
his own strong and powerful style. 

In contemplating the glorious event of the Reformation, 
he expresses himself with perfect rapture. " How the 



LIFE OF MILTON. 35 

bright and glorious Reformation (by divine power,) shone 
through the black and settled night o^ignorance and Anti- 
christian tyranny ; methinks a sovereign and reviving joy 
must needs rush into the bosom of him that reads or hears, 
and the sweet odour imbueth his soul with the fragrancy 
of heaven. Then was the sacred Bible brought out of the 
dusty corners, where profane falsehood and neglect had 
thrown it ; the schools opened ; divine and human learning 
raked out of the embers of forgotten tongues ; princes 
and cities trooping apace to the new-erected banner of 
salvation ; the martyrs with the irresistible might of weak' 
ness, shaking the powers of darkness, and scoraing the 
fiery rage of the old red dragon." 

He thus continues his discourse of prelatical episcopa- 
cy, and displays iis politics, which he contended had 
always been opposed to liberty. He traces its history 
Trom its most remote origin, and proves, that as it existed 
in England particularly, it was so far from being, as they 
commonly allege, the only form of church discipline 
agreeable to monarchy, that the most mortal diseases and 
convulsions of the government had always proceeded from 
the craft or pride of the Bishops ! He then boldly encou- 
rages the English and the Scotch, united by " the solemn 
league and covenant," to pursue the contest for liberty 
in Church and State, which they had so nobly begun. 
" Go on both, hand in hand, O nations, never to be dis- 
united. Be the praise and heroic song of all posterity — 
Merit this ; but seek only virtue, not to extend your limits ; 
for what need you win a fading triumphant laurel out of 
the tears of wretched men, but to settle the pure worship 
of God in his church, and justice in the state ? Then 
shall the hardest difficulties smooth out themselves before 
you ; envy shall sink to hell ; craft and malice be con- 
founded, whether it be homebred mischief, or outlandish 



36 LIFE OF MILTON. 

cunning ; yea, other nations will then covet to serve you ; 
for lordship and victory are but the passes of justice and 
virtue. Commit securely to true wisdom the vanquishing 
and unusing of craft and subtilty, which are but her two 
renegades. Join your invincible might to do worthy and 
godlike deeds, and then he that wishes to break your un- 
ion, a cleaving curse be his inheritance to all generations." 
Alas ! how bitterly must Milton have lamented the dis- 
union which soon after took place between these nations, 
and the oceans of noble blood which flowed of whole 
hecatombs, (chiefly Scotch,) from the victims offered to 
appease mutual pride and jealousy, craft and treachery ! 

With one other short extract I will conclude this article : 
— " The sour leven of human traditions," he says, " mixt 
in one putrified mass with the poisonous dross of hypo- 
crisy in the hearts of Prelates, that lie basking in the sun. 
ny warmth of wealth and promotion, is the serpent's egg, 
that will hatch an Antichrist wheresover, and ingender the 
same monster as big or little as the lump is which breeds 
him. If the splendour of gold and silver begin to lord it 
once again in the Church o^ England, we shall see Anti- 
christ shortly wallow here, though his chief kennel be at 
Rome. Believe me, Sir, right truly it may be said, that 
Antichrist is Mammon'' s son." 

In 1641, certain of the Presbyterian ministers published 
a treatise against Episcopacy ,^ the title Smectymnuus, con- 
sisting of the initial letters of their names.* A Bishop 
having condescended to answer it, Milton says : " I sup- 
pose myself to be not less able to write for truth, than 
others for their pro^i or unjust power *^^ He therefore un- 
dertook to answer the lordly prelate, and published his 

♦This was a quarto worlc, and was written by Stephen Marshall, Ed- 
mund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and VVilh'am Spur- 
stow. 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



37 



work of Prelatical Episcopacy. "In this work," says 
Toland, " he proves against the famous Usher, (for he 
would not readily engage a meaner adversary,) that Dio* 
cesan Episcopacy, or a superior order to the common 
ministry, cannot be deduced from the Apostolical times> 
by the force of such testimonies as are alleged to that 
purpose. Now, Usher's chief talents lying in much read- 
ing, and being a great editor, and admirer of old writings^ 
Milton shows the insufficiency, inconveniency, and im- 
piety of this method, to establish any part of Christianity ; 
and blames those persons, who cannot think any doubt 
resolved, or any doctrine confirmed, unless they run to 
that indigested heap and fry of authors, which they call 
antiquity." " Whatsoever either time," he says, " or 
the heedless hand of blind chance has drawn down to 
this present, in her huge drag-net, whether fish or sea- 
weed, shells or shrubs, unpicked, unchosen — these are 
the fathers." And so he chides the good bishop Usher, 
" for divulging useless treatises, stuffed with the specious 
names of Ignatius and Polycarpus, with fragments of 
old martyrologies and legends, to distract and stagger the 
multitude of credulous readers." 

His next performance on the same subject, and chiefly 
directed against Usher's " Origin of Episcopacy,''^ was 
entitled, "The reason of Church-government urged 
against Prelacy, in two books." " The eloquence is 
masculine," says Toland, " the method is natural, and the 
sentiments are free." 

Another eminent Bishop, Dr. Joseph Hall, of Norwich, 
having written against Smectymnuus, Milton published 
^^ Animadversions^' on his book. In a very unceremoni- 
ous manner, he thus attacks his respectable opponent : 
" We know where the shoe wrings you ; you fret, and are 
galled at the quick ; and oh ! what a death to the prelates 



38 LIFE OF MILTON. 

to be thus unvizarded ; to have your periwigs plucked off, 
that cover your baldness ; your inside nakedness thrown 
open to public view. The Romans had a time every 
year, when their slaves might speak their minds ; 'twere 
hard if the free-born people of England, with whom the 
voice of truth, for these many years, even against the 
proverb, hath not been heard but in corners, after all your 
monkish prohibitions, and expurgatorious indexes your 
gags, and sniffles, your proud Imprimaturs, not to be 
obtained but with the shallow services, but not shallow 
hand of some mercenary, narrow-souled, and illiterate 
chaplain ; when liberty of speaking, than which nothing 
is more sweet to man, was girded and straight-laced, 
almost to a broken-winded Tizzick ; if now, at a good 
time, — our time of Parliament, the very Jubilee and 
resurrection of the state, — if now the corrected, the ag- 
grieved, and long persecuted truth could not be suffered 
[to] speak ; and though she burst out with some efficacy 
of words, could not be excused, after such an injurious 
strangle of silence,, nor void the censure of libelling, 
'twere hard, 'twere something pinching, in a kingdom of 
free spirits." 

The " Remonstrant" had said, " If in time you shall 
see wooden chalices and wooden priests, thank your- 
selves." Milton answers, " It had been happy for this 
land, if your priests had been but only wooden : all England 
knows they have been to this island not wood, but worm- 
wood, that have infected the third part of our waters, like 
the apostate starrre in the revelation, that many souls 
have died of their bitternesse ; and if you mean by wooden, 
illiterate or contemptible, there was no want of that sort 
among you, and their number increasing daily, as their 
laziness, their tavern-hunting, their neglect of all sound 



LIFE OF MILTON. 39 

literature, and their liking of doltish and monastical school- 
men daily increast." 

To the reasons which are alleged by Episcopalians, for 
the liturgy being founded upon the acts of councils ; and 
in order to give his opinion of free, or extempore prayer, 
he thus expresses himself: — " Let the grave councils put 
their books upon their shelves again, and string them 
hard, lest their various and jangling opinions put their 
leaves into a flutter. I do not intend, this hot season, to 
lead you a course through the wide and dusty champain 
of the councils ; but I shall take counsel of that which 
counselled them — reason ! And though I know there is 
an obsolete reprehension now at your tongue's end, yet I 
shall be bold to say, that reason is the gift of God in one 
man as well as a thousand. By that which we have 
tasted already of their cisterns, we may find that reason 
was the only thing, and not any divine command, that 
moved them to enjoin the set forms of a liturgy. First, 
lest any thing in general might be missed in their public 
prayers, through ignorance or want of care, contrary to 
the faith ; — and next, lest the Arians and Pelagians, in 
particular, should infect the people by their hymns and 
forms of prayer. But, by the good leave of these ancient 
fathers, this was no solid prevention of spreading heresy, 
to debar the ministers of God of their noblest talent — 
prayer in their congregations ; unless they had forbid the 
use of all sermons and lectures too, but such as was ready 
made to their hands, like our homilies : or else, he that 
was heretically disposed, had as fair an opportunity of 
infecting in his discourse as in his prayer or hymn. As 
insufficiently, and to say truth, as imprudently did they 
provide, by their contrived liturgies, lest any thing should 
be prayed through ignorance or want of care in the min- 
isters ; for if they were careless and ignorant in their 



46 



LIFE OF MILTON, 



prayers, certainly they would be more careless in watch- 
ing over their flock ; and what prescription could reach 
to bound them in both these ? What if reason now illus- 
trated by the word of God, shall be able to produce a 
better preventive than these councils have left us against 
heresy, ignorance, or want of care in the ministry, to wit, 
that such wisdom and diligence be used in the education 
of those that would be ministers, and such a spirit and 
serious examination to be undergone before their admis- 
sion, as St» Paid to Timothy sets down at large ; and then 
they need not carry such an unworthy suspicion over 
the preachers of God's word, as to tutor their unsoundness 
with the a, b, c, of a liturgy, or to diet their ignorance 
and want of care with the limited draught of a matin and 
evening-song drink." 

He gives another hard hit at the contents of the liturgy : 
" To contend that it is fantastical, if not senseless, in 
some places, were a copious argument, especially in the 
responses. For such alternatives as are there used, must 
be by several persons ; but the minister and the people 
cannot so sever their interests as to sustain several per- 
sons, he being the only mouth of the whole body which 
he represents. And if the people pray, he being silent, 
or they ask one thing, and he another, it either changes 
the property, making the priest the people, and the people 
the priest by turns, or else makes two persons repre- 
sentative where there should be but one ; which, if there 
were nothing else, must be a strange quaintness in ordi- 
nary prayer. It has, indeed, been pretended to be more 
ancient than the mass, but so little proved, that whereas 
other corrupt liturgies have had such a seeming antiquity 
that their publishers have ventured to ascribe them either 
to St. Peter, St. James, St. Mark, or at least to 
Chrysostome or Basil, ours has never been able to find 



LIFE OF MILTON. 41 

neither age or author allowable, on whom to father those 
things which therein is least offensive, except the two 
creeds." 

Considering that Censtantine corrupted religion, he 
says : — " Of his Arianism we heard ; and for the rest, a 
pretty scantling of his knowledge may be taken, by his 
deferring to be baptized so many years, a thing not unu- 
sual, and repugnant to the tenor of Scripture, Philip 
knowing nothing that should hinder the Eunuch to be 
baptized [immediately] after the profession of his belief J'^ 
He quotes Dante, in his 19th Canto of Inferna, to prove 
that even men professing the Roman faith, had charged 
Constantino with having marred every thing in the 
church : — 

" Ah ! Constantine, of how much ill the catise, 

Not thy conversion, but those rich domains, 

That the first wealthy Pope secured of thee." — p. 27. 

He published another work in this year, entitled "Reason 
of Church Government urged against Prelaty ;" which he 
commences by proving, that " the Church Government 
is prescribed in the Gospel, and that to say otherwise is 
unsound." He takes up the hackneyed argument of 
churchmen, who contend that church discipline is not 
platformed in the Bible, but is left to the discretion of 
men." To the first of these statements he answers : 
" If we could imagine that he [Christ] left it at random, 
without his providence and gracious ordering, who is he 
so arrogant, so presumptuous, that durst dispose and guide 
the living ark of the Holy Ghost, though he should find 
it wandering in the fields o^ Bethshemish, without the con- 
stant warrant of some high calling 1 But no profane in- 
solence can parallel that which our prelates dare avouch, 
to drive outrageously, and shelter the holy ark of the 

5 



42 LIFE OF MILTON. 

church, not borne upon their shoulders with pains and 
labour in the word, but drawn with rude oxen, their offi- 
cials and their own brute inventions. Let them make 
shews of reforming while they will, so long as the church 
is mounted upon the prelatical cart, and not as it ought, 
between the hands of the ministers, it will but shake and 
totter ; and he that sets to his hand, though with a good 
intent, to hinder the shogging of it, in this unlawful wag- 
gonry wherein he rides, let him beware it be not fatal to 
him as it was to Uzza." 

In reply to quotations from the Fathers, he speaks most 
contemptuously. He calls them, " those more ancient 
than trusty Fathers, whose custom and fond opinion, weak 
principles, and the neglect of sounder knowledge, have 
exalted so high, as to have gained them a blind reverence, 
whose books in bigness and number are endless and im- 
measurable ; I cannot think that either God or nature, 
either divine or human wisdom, did mean they should 
ever be a rule or reliance to us, in the decision of any 
weighty or positive doctrines ; for certainly every rule 
and instrument of necessary knowledge that God has 
given us, ought to be so in proportion as may be wielded 
and managed by the life of man, without penning him up 
from the duties of human society. But he that shall bind 
himself to make antiquity his rule, if he reads but part, 
(besides the difficulty of the choice,) his rule is deficient 
and utterly unsatisfying. For there may be other writers 
of another mind, which he has not seen ; and if he under- 
takes all, the length of man's life cannot extend to give 
him a full and requisite knowledge of what was done in 
antiquity. Go, therefore, and use all your art, apply 
your sledges, your levers, and your iron crows, to heave 
your mighty Polyphemus of antiquity, to the delusion of 
novices and unexperienced Christians." 



LIFE OF MILTON. 43 

" But if any shall strive to set up his Ephod and Tera- 
phim of antiquity against the brightness and perfection of 
the gospel, let him fear lest he and his Baal be turned 
into Bosheth. And thus much may suffice to shew that 
the pretended Episcopacy cannot be deduced from the 
apostolical times." 

Nor was he friendly to the system of ministers being 
paid from tythes and other church revenues, which the 
Puritans, who now possessed the livings, could prove to 
be jure Divino with infinite ease ! not excelled in their 
conclusive arguments even by their predecessors, whether 
Episcopalians or Papists. " The present ecclesiastical 
revenues" he says, " were not at first the effects of just 
policy or wholesome laws, but of the superstitious devo- 
tion of princes and great men who knew no better; or of 
the base importunity of begging friars, haunting and ha- 
rassing the death-beds of men departing this life, in a blind 
and wretched condition of hope to merit heaven, for the 
building of churches, cloysters, and convents ; the black 
revenues of purgatory, the price of abused and murdered 
souls, the damned simony of Trentals, and the hire of 
indulgencies to commit mortal sin." 

Before concluding my extracts from this work, I intro- 
duce the following humourous satire of those who shouted, 
" No bishop ! No king !" in a letter to a friend. 

<' Sir, — Can mischief be nearer hand, than when 
bishops shall openly affirm that * No bishop f No king /* 
A trim paradox, and they may know where they have 
been begging for it. I will fetch you the twin brother 
to it out of the Jesuit's cell ; they, feeling the axe of God's 
reformation, hewing at the old and rotten trunk of Pa- 
pacy, and finding the Spaniard their surest friend and 
safest refuge, to soothe him up in his dream of a fifth 



44 LIFE OF MILTON, 

monarchy, and withal to uphold the decrepit Papalty, have 
invented this super-politick aphorism, as one terms it, 
* One Pope and one king I' 

" The little ado which I find in undertaking these 
pleasant sophisms, puts me into the mind to tell you a tale 
before I proceed further, and Menenius Agrippa speed us. 

*' A TALE OF THE HEAD AND THE WEN. 

" Upon a time the body summoned all the members to 
meet in the guild for the common good, (as ^sop's 
Chronicles draw many stranger accidents;) the head by 
right takes the first seat, and next to it a huge and mon- 
strous werij little less. than the head itself, growing to it by 
a narrow excrescency. The members arranged began 
to ask one another what he was that took place next 
their chief: none could resolve, whereat the wen, though 
unwieldy, with much ado gets up, and bespeaks the as- 
sembly to this purpose ; — that as in place he was second 
to the headj so by due of merit ; that he was to it an 
ornament, and strength, and of special near relation ; and 
that if the head should fail, none were fitter than himself 
to slip into his place ; therefore he thought it for the 
honour of the body, that such dignities and rich endow- 
ments should be deemed him, as did adorn and set out 
the noblest members. To this was answered, that it 
should be consulted. There was a wise and learned 
philosopher sent for, that knew all the charters, laws, and 
tenures of the body ; on him it is imposed by all, as chief 
counsellor,, to examine and discuss the claim and petition 
of right put in by the wen ; who soon hearing the matter, 
and wondering at the boldness of such a swoln tumour ; 
'Wilt thou, (quoth he,) that art but a bottle of vitious and 
hardened excrements, contend with the lawlul and free- 



LIFE OF MILTON. 45 

born members, whose certain number is set by ancient 
and unimpeachable statute ? Head thou art none, though 
thou receive this huge substance from it. What offices 
bearest thou? What good canst thou show done by thee 
to the common v/eal 1 The wen, not easily dasht, replies, 
that his office was his glory ; for as oft as the soul would 
retire out of the head, from over the steaming vapours of 
the lower parts to divine contemplations, with him she 
found the purest and quickest retreat, as being most re- 
mote from soil and disturbance. *Lourdan,' quoth the 
philosopher, ' thy folly is as great as thy filth ; know that 
all the faculties of the soul are confined of old to their 
several vessels and ventricles, from which they cannot 
part without the dissolution of the whole body ; and that 
thou containest no good thing in thee, but a heap of hard 
and loathsome uncleanness, and art to the head a foul 
disfigurement and burden. When I have cut thee off 
and opened thee, as by the help of these implements I will 
do, ail men shall know." 

Some minister, said by Milton to be a son of Bishop 
Hall, in writing against his Animadversions on Bishop 
Usher's book, had called it " a scurrilous libel ;" and not 
content with this, had treated the author with the greatest 
contempt, using defaming language and personal reflec- 
tions. In his reply entitled, ^^ Modest confutation of a 
slanderous and scandalous Libel, by John 31ilton, gent." 
he proves himself to have been a match for his antagonist 
even in scurrility and calling hard names. Speaking of 
the university men, he says, " What with truanting and 
debauchery, what with false grounds, and the weakness 
of natural faculties in many of them (it being a maxim 
with some men to send the simplest of their sons thither,) 
perhaps there would be found among them as many un- 
solid and corrupted judgments, both in doctriae and life, 

5* 



46 LIFE OF MILTON. 

as in any other two corporations of the like bigness. 
This is undoubted, that if any capenter, smith, or weaver, 
were such a bungler in his trade, as the greater number 
of them are in their profession, he would starve for any 
custom : and should he exercise his manufacture as little 
as they do their talents, he would forget his art : or, 
should he mistake his tools as they do theirs, he would mar 
all the work he took in hand. How few among them 
that know how to write or speak in a pure stile, much 
less to distinguish the ideas and various kinds of stile. 
In Latin barbarous, and oft not without solecisms, declaim- 
ing in rugged and miscellaneous gear, blown together by 
the four winds ; and in their choice preferring the gay 
rankness of AruLEius, Arnobius, or any modern Fus- 
tianist, before the native Latinisms of Cicero. In the 
Greek tongue most of them unlettered, or unentered to 
any sound proficiency in those Aitic masters of wisdom 
or eloquence. In the Hebrew text, except it be some few 
of them, their letters are utterly uncircumcised. No less 
are they out of the way in philosophy, pestering their 
lieads with the sapless dotages of old Pan's and Sola. 
mancaJ'^ 

His antagonist had meanly insinuated that Milton's 
early rising was for sensual pursuits. In reply, he says : 
" My morning haunts are, where they should be, at home ; 
not sleeping or concocting the surfeits of an irregular 
feast, but up and stirring ; in winter often before the 
sound of any bell awakens men to labour or devotion ; 
in summer as oft as the bird that first rouses, or not 
much tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to be 
read till the attention is weary, or the memory have its 
full fraught. Then, with useful and generous labour, 
preserving the body's health and hardiness,, to render a 
lightsome, clear, and not a lumpish, obedience of the 



LIFE OF MILTON. 47 

mind, for the cause of religion and our country^ s liberty, 
when it shall require firm hearts in sound bodies, to stand 
and cover their stations, rather than see the ruin of our 
Protestation, [P7'otestajitis7n,^ and the inforcement of a 
slavish life.^^ 

He thus castigates collegians who were theatrical per- 
formers. " There, while they acted and overacted, 
among other young scholars, I was a spectator : they 
thought themselves gallant men, and I thought them fools ; 
they made sport, and I laughed ; they mispronounced, 
and I misliked ; and to make up the Atticism, they were 
out, and I hist," 

He had to answer the charge of lewdness and sensual- 
ity from his reverend accuser ! " These means, together 
with a certain niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness 
and self-esteem, either of what I was or what I might be, 
(which let envy call pride,) and lastly, a burning modesty, 
all uniting their natural aid together, kept me still above 
those low descents of mind, beneath which he must de- 
ject and plunge himself, that can agree to salvable and 
unlawful prostitution." — "If I should tell you what I 
learnt of chastity and love, (I mean that which is truly 
so,) whose charming cup is only virtue, which she bears 
in her hand to those who are worthy ; the rest are cheat- 
ed with a thick, intoxicating potion, which a certain sor- 
ceress, the abuser of love's name, carries about : and if 
I were to tell you how the first and chiefest office of love 
begins and ends in the soul, producing those happy twins 
of the divine generation, knowledge and virtue, with such 
abstracted sublimities as these, it might be worth your 
listening, readers." 

His most reverend antagonist indulged in the following 
advice to Milton's acquaintances ; that is, if they were 
genuine Christians. " You that love Christ," said he, 



48 LIFE OF MILTON. 

" and know this miscreant wretch, stone him to deaths 
lest you smart for his impunity." The following retort 
is too much in the stile of " rendering railing for railing ;"" 
though it is probable Milton thought it to be " answer- 
ing a fool according to his folly, lest he should be wise in 
his own conceit." " There be those in the world, and I 
among those, who nothing admire the idol of a bishop- 
rick ; and hold that it wants so much to be a blessing, as 
that I deem it the merest, the falsest, the most unfortunate 
gift of fortune ; and were the punishment and misery of 
being a bishop to be terminated only in the person, and 
did not extend to the affliction of the whole diocese, if I 
could wish any thing in the bitterness of my soul to an 
enemy, I should wish him the bigge&t and the fattest 
bishoprick." 

On this prayer his biographer quaintly remarks : " If 
Milton had been such a saint as never missed a favour- 
able answer to his prayers, I question not, but at this rate, 
more had coveted to be his enemies than his friends." 
" Another mark of Milton's goodwill to the bishops," 
says Toland, " was this unpardonable simile : — ' A bi- 
shop's foot, that has all its toes, (maugre the gout,) and 
a linen sock over it, is the aptest emblem of the prelate 
himself; who being a pluralist, may under one surplice 
hide four benefices, besides the great metropolitan toe 
which sends such a foul stench to heaven.' In another 
place, he calls their princely revenues the 'gulfs and 
whirlpools of benefices, but the dry pits of all sound doc- 
trine.' And again, ' Bishops or presbyters we know, and 
deacons we know, but what are chaplins ? In state, per- 
haps, they may be listed among the upper serving men of 
some great household, and be admi>tted to some such 
place as may stile them the servers or yeomen-ushers 



LIFE Of MILTON. 49 

of devotion, where the master is too rusty or too rich to 
say his own prayers, or to bless his own table.' " 

His sarcasms upon the worldly-minded ministers were 
not confined to Episcopalians ; the Puritans, who had 
succeeded them in the parish livings, and, it should ap- 
pear, in many instances, to their covetous and libidinous 
practices, came in for their full share. " Oh, ye minis- 
ters," says he, " read here what work he makes among 
your gallipots, your balms, and your cordials ; and not 
only your sweet sippets in widow's houses, but the huge 
goblets, wherewith he charges you to have devoured 
houses and all. Cry him up for a saint in your pulpits^ 
while he cries you down for Atheists in hell." 

All these elaborate works must have been written in 
little more than a year after his return, and when he 
was but little more than thirty-three years of age. 

The judicious reader will have perceived, that Milton's 
objections to the Episcopal Church of England, were 
founded upon the dissenting arguments af the sufficiency 
of the Scriptures alone, and the rightof private judgment, 
in opposition to her acknowledged foundation, being the 
Creeds of the first four general councils, in addition to 
the Scriptures ; and the Antichristian principle of the 
right of the civil magistrate to adopt rites and ceremonies, 
and enforce them by civil pains and penalties, upon the 
observance of those whose consciences would not allow 
them to obey any thing in religion, but what was taught 
them in the oracles of God. 

It is fair to admit, that another circumstance which 
roused his mighty choler was adventitious to the order of 
bishops, but which, with many of that order, was an in- 
tegral part of their office : this was their being employed 
as civil officers, having to manage many of the affiiirs of 
government, at least in so far as related to what they 



50 LIFE OF MILTON. 

called religious delinquencies. The decisions and sen. 
tences of bishops, in the Star Chamber, from which there 
was no appeal, were the most galling oppression, the 
most cruel tyranny ; and even the Canons, which had 
been adopted by them in their last Convocation, in 1640, 
had roared hoarse thunder, and sent forth more than fire 
and smoke against the almost only honest men, at that 
time, in the kingdom, the Puritans and Sectaries : the 
Anabaptists, Brownists, Separatists, Familists, &;c. &;c. 

Nor should it be overlooked, that though the blunt and 
strait-forward caustic style in which he attacked the pre- 
lates must have been highly diverting to those Puritans, 
both in church and state, who had begun to throw off 
their prelatical chains, yet the sentiments would be very 
far from meeting their approbation ; because, though the 
Puritans were opposed to Episcopacy, they yet had no 
objection to \\\e 'principle of an establishment, the spiritual 
supremacy of the monarch ; and much less to any tithes 
provided for the support of the priesthood ; nor, I might 
add, to what was, above all, exposed by Milton, the right 
of the established sect to withhold toleration, and to pun- 
ish, with fines and imprisonments, and even with death, 
those who would not submit their consciences to the dic- 
tation of the magistrate, 



LIFE OF MILTON. 51 

CHAPTER III. 

1644—1648. 

At this time a most dreadful civil war raged in the nation, 
which was began in the year 1640. The historian Hume, 
speaking of the meeting of parliament at that period, 
says : " The parliament, at meeting, (the 13th of April, 
1640,) was unusually numerous. Every member looked 
upon this conjunction as a national crisis. The king in 
his speech represented the necessity of a supply to main- 
tain his troops, and of means to expel the Scottish rebels, 
that the nation in general might be free from its fears, 
and the northern counties disburdened of such trouble- 
some guests, whom they were obliged to maintain. The 
commons having, at the king's recommendation, filled 
their chair with William Lenthal, a lawyer of some rep- 
utation, established a committee of elections. Then they 
resolved that, on certain days of every week, there should 
be a committee of the whole house, to deliberate upon 
the state of religion, the grievances, the courts of justice, 
commerce, and the affairs of Ireland. Fanaticism, with 
all its levelling principles, had now overspread the land. 
Even those leaders of the commons who had assumed a 
puritanical severity in their words and actions, to work 
the more effectually on the minds of the populace, were 
gradually infected with that enthusiasm which at first 
they had only feigned : many became real religionists, 
while others imbibed a large portion of puritanism, with- 
out laying aside their hypocrisy. The members were 
generally bent upon an alteration in the government. A 
few moderate men sought only to ascertain the liberties 
of the nation : others resolved to humble and diminish 



52 LIFE OF MILTON> 

the royal prerogative ; and there was a more violent 
party, that extended their views to an utter extirpation of 
the hierarchy and monarchical government ; but these at 
first carefully concealed their designs under the profession 
of rigid Presbyterians, and were afterwards known by 
the name of Independents. Religion was become a uni» 
versal fashion. The most eloquent speakers in the house 
introduced a kind of holy cant and jargon into their 
speeches, and all their allusions being scriptural, stamped 
them with an air of prophecy or inspiration."* Vol. vii. 
p. 169. London edition. 1759. 

A distinguished female writer, of sound constitutional 
principles and of heart-felt piety, Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, 
gives the following account of the state of the nation at 
this period : — " The king had upon his heart the dealings 
both in England and Scotland with his mother, and har- 
boured a secret desire of revenge upon the godly in both 
nations, yet had not courage enough to assert his resent- 
ment like a prince, but employed a wicked cunning he 
was master of, and called king-craft, to undermine what 
he durst not openly oppose — the true religion : this was 
fenced with the liberty of the people, and so linked to- 
gether, that 'twas impossible to make them slaves, till 
they were brought to be idolaters of royalty and glorious 
lust , and as impossible to make them adore these gods, 
while they continued loyall to the government of Jesus 
Christ. The payment of civill obedience to the king and 
the laws of the land satisfied not ; if any durst dispute 
his impositions in the worship of God, he was presently 
reckon'd among the seditious and disturbers of the public 

♦The reader, by bearing in his mind that Hume was a Tory in politics 
and an infidel in religion, will know how to appreciate this description, 
so far as it relates to the Puritans : he seems to have totally forgotten that 
it is not the prerogative of any man to search the hearts of other men. 



LIFE OF MILTON. 53 

peace, and accordingly persecuted ; if any were grieved 
at the dishonour of the kingdom, or the griping of the 
poore, or the unjust oppressions of the subiect, by a 
thousand ways, invented to maintain the riotts of the 
courtier and the swarms of needy Scots the king had 
brought in to devoure Hke locusts the plenty of this land, 
he was a Puritane : if any, out of mere morallity and 
civill honesty, discountenanced the abominations of those 
days, he was a Puritane, however he conformed to their 
superstitious worship : if any showed favour to any godly, 
honest person, kept them company, relieved them in 
want, or protected them against violent or uniust oppres- 
sion, he was a Puritane : if any gentleman in his country 
maintained the good laws of the land, or stood up for any 
public interest, for good order or government, he was a 
Puritane : in short, all that crostthe viewes of the needie 
courtiers, the proud, encroaching priests, the theevish 
proiectors, the lewd nobillity and gentrie, whoever was 
zealous for God's glory or worship, could not endure 
blasphemous oaths, ribbald conversation, prophane scoffs, 
sabbath-breach, derision of the word of God, and the like ; 
whoever could endure a sermon, modest habitt, or con- 
versation, or something good, all these were Puritanes ; 
and if Puritanes, then enemies to the king and his gov- 
ernment, seditious factions, hypocrites, ambitious dis- 
turbers of the public peace, and finally, the pest of the 
kingdom. Such false logick did the children of darkness 
use, to argue with against the hated children of light, 
whom they branded besides as an illiterate, morose, dis- 
contented, melanchoUy, crazed sort of men, not fit for 
humane conversation : as such, they not only made them 
the sport of the pulpitt, which was become but a more 
solemn sort of stage ; but every stage, and every table, 
and every pupett-play, belcht forth profane scoffs upon 

6 



64 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



them ; the drunkards made them their songs ; all fidlers 
and mimicks learned to abuse them, as finding it a most 
gamefull way of fooling. Thus the two factions in those 
dayes grew up to great heigths and enmities, one against 
the other ; whilst the Papist wanted not industry and 
subtilty to blow the coals betweene them, and was so 
successeful, that unless the mercy of God confounde them 
by their own imaginations, we may iustly feare they will 
at last obtane their full wish."* 

In order to give the reader a view of the condition of 
the Prelates at this period, it must be stated, that on the 
15th of December, 1640, a petition was presented to the 
House of Commons against the Popish ceremonies in the 
Church ; and on the 22nd the House resolved : — " That 
the Clergy, in a synod or convocation, hath no power to 
make laws, canons, or constitutions,! to bind either Laity 
or Clergy, without the Parliament ; and that the canons, 
made by the late convocation, are against the fundamental 
laws of this realm, the King's prerogative, propriety of 
the subject, the rights of Parliament, and do tend to fac- 

* Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, written by his widow, Lucy, vol. i. 
p. 121-124. 

t From one of these condemned Canons, (No. 5,) I extract the follow- 
ing : — " That all those proceedings and penalties, which are mentioned in 
the aforesaid Canon against Popish miscreants, as far as they shall be 
applicable, shall stand in full force and vigor against all Anabaptists, 
BrownistSy Separatists^ FainilistSy or other sect or sects, person and per- 
sons, whatsoever, who do, or shall either obstinately refuse, or ordinarily, 
not having a lawful impediment, (that is, for the space of a month,) neglect 
to repair lo their Parish Churches or Chapels, where they inhabit, for the 
purpose of hearing divine service established, and receiving of the holy 
communion, according to law, &c. &c. &c." The penalty, excommuni- 
cation for the first offence. The 7ih Article, entitled " A Declaration con- 
cerning some Rites and Ceremonies," is, in so far as it relates to the 
Conmunion Table, &c. &c. the grossest popery. — See Constitutions and 
Canoii^, agreed to by the King, 1640, p. 21, 22, Sparrow^s Collections. 



LIFE OF MILTON. 55 

tioa and sedition."* (Clarendon and Whitlocke com- 
pared, p. 57.) 

We learn from Hume, that on the 13th of February, 
two days after the execution of the persecuting Arch- 
bishop Laud, the House of Commons ordered a bill to be 
brought in for abolishing superstition. On the 1st of 

♦The Dissenters from the EstabUshed Church had for many years had 
separate congregations, or churches, in London, though doubtless as pri- 
vate as possible. The first was a General or Arminian Baptist Church, 
in 1611. The Independents had founded a church in 1616. The Presby- 
terians had had separate congregations, from 1572, though their ministers 
still kept their parishes. But now that the parliament had put an end to 
the persecuting power of the bishops, the sects made no attempt to hide 
themselves, but met publicly at various places. The honest Thomas Fuller, 
in his Church History says, but not with his usual pious feeling and good 
temper, " oa Jan. 18, 1641, happened the first fruits of Anabaptistical in- 
solence, when eighty of that sect, meeting at a house in St. Saviour's, 
Southwarlf, preached that the statute in the 35th of Elizabeth, for the 
administration of common prayer, was no good law, because made by 
bishops; that the king cannot make a good law, because not perfectly 
regenerate ; and that he was only to be obeyed in civil matters. Being 
brought before the Lords, they confessed the articles, but no penalty was 
inflicted on them." 

The reader who is curious enough to know all about this matter, should 
consult, as I have done, the Journals of the House of Lords of that period. 
He will find that the Lords treated the six or seven men who were brought 
before them for having dared to preach against the king's supremacy, in 
spiritual matters, with great respect ; enquired where they assembled ; and 
intimated they would come and hear them. Accordingly, the next Lord's 
Day, three or four of the peers, to the great astonishment of many, went to 
" Deadman's Place, in Southwark ;" — three or four of the peers attend their 
religious worship ! — "The people went on in their usual method, having 
two sermons, in both of which they treated of those principles for which 
they had been accused ; founding their discourses upon the words of our 
Saviour, ' All power is given unto me, bothin heaven and inearth, ff'c' 
After this, they received the Lord's Supper, and then made a collection for 
the poor, to which the peers contributed liberally with them. At their de- 
parture they signified their satisfaction as to what they had heard and seen, 
and their inclination to come again ; but this made so much noise, that 
they durst not venture a second time."— (/riwey's History of the English 

Baptists, vol. i, p. 153, 1.54.) 



56 LIFE ON MILTOPT. 

March, a committee was established to prepare reasons 
for depriving ecclesiastics of all secular en:plo3'ments. 
At lengih a bill for excluding ecclesiastics from all secu- 
lar employments passed the House of Commons, and was 
sent up to the Lords among whom it met with great 
opposition. — The Commons immediately brought in an- 
other bill for the total abolition of episcopacy. — Then the 
Lords gave them to understand, they were ready to con- 
cur with the first bill, excepting the clause which deprived 
bishops of their seats in parliament. The Commons 
presented nine reasons for excluding bishops from parlia- 
ment. On the 7th of June, the Peers voted, ' That the 
bishops should be maintained in their right to sit in par- 
liament.' — On the 15th, the lower House passed a vote, 
importing, ' That all deans, chapters, archdeacons, pre- 
bendaries, chanters, canons, and their officers, should be 
totally suppressed, and their revenues employed for the 
encouragement of study, science, and other pious uses ; 
that the King should be indemnified for his rents, first 
fruits, and other rights ; and that a convenient subsistence 
should be assigned to those who should be thus deprived 
of their livings, provided they were not delinquents.' 

Twelve prelates, meeting at the house of the archbishop 
of York, subscribed a protest, which was presented to the 
Lords and the King, importing, * That, as they had an 
incontestable right to vote in parliament, they were ready 
to do their duty, if not prevented by force and violence ; 
that they abhorred all opinions tending to the advance- 
ment of popery ; that, as they had been insulted, and their 
lives endangered by the fury of the populace, they 
could no longer repair to the House of Peers, unless 
measures should be taken for their personal safety ; and 
therefore they protested against all laws, votes, and reso- 
lutions that should be made in their absence.' — The 



LIFE OF MILTON. 57 

Lords no sooner received this protest, (which was, in 
effect, an effort to dissolve or suspend the parliament,) 
than they demanded a conference with the Commons, 
who, having taken it into consideration, resolved to accuse 
the bishops of high treason, for having attempted to sub- 
vert the fundamental laws and the very essence of par- 
liament. This resolution was immediately executed, and 
the twelve bishops were committed to prison. 

The king passed the bill to exclude the bishops from 
their seats it parliament ; soon after, the two houses, in 
1643, signed "the Solemn League and Covenant," 
which bound the two kingdoms to the extirpation of po- 
pery and prelacy.* — {Hume's History, vol. vii.) 

From this period may be dated the establishment, in- 
crease, and prosperity of the Independent and Baptist 
Churches. f 

Considering how much Milton had contributed towards 
this consummation — the abolition of Diocesan Episcopacy 
— the event of "the extirpation of prelacy" must have 
afforded him exuberant joy ; because, with his senti- 

* That the proceedings of the Parliament, in putting out the bishops, 
gave great pleasure to the country, is evident from many circumstances ; 
one may be mentioned : — In the Journal of the House of Lords, 22d April^ 
1642, there is an entry from "the knights, &c. &c. of the county of Corn- 
wall," in which it is said, "That they heartily praise GckI, and thank you, 
for your happy conjunction with the House of Gammons, in casting out 
bishops for sitting and voting among you." 

t The Baptists, who held the principles afterwards called Calvinistic, 
and had, from the time of Wickliffe, been mixed up with the Lollards and 
Sacramentarians, formed themselves, in the year 1633, into a separate 
church. Their beginning was very small ; but they soon abundantly in- 
creased. Mr. William Kiffin, who joined them in 1638, and who became, 
from his character and influence, the father of the denomination, gives the 
following simple account of their origin. " There was a congregation of 
Protestant dissenters of the Independent persuasion in London, gathered in 
the year 1616, of which Mr. Henry Jacob was their first pastor j and after 

a* 



58 LILE OF MILTOJT. 

merits, as expressed in his several treatises against the 
prelates, he considered, as the parliament appears to have 
done, that popery and prelacy were identical, or at least 
so closely united, that in death they could not be divided ! 
The pious bishop, Joseph Hall, who was one of the pro- 
testors^ calls the treatment they received from the Com- 
mons " hard measure !" It might have been so to him 
and a few others, who were devoted Christian ministers 
of the Gospel ; but as to most of them, they were any 
thing rather than Christian bishops ! — Cruel persecutor's 
of the godly dissenters, and base sycophants to the king 
and his oppressive ministers; and who, like Ahab, as to 
the votes which they gave in parliament, " sold them- 
selves to work iniquity ;" the non-resisting and passive 
obedient tools of arbitrary power ; the ready helpers to 
execute any oppressive measures to grind the people to 
powder; mean satellites and cringing hypocrites lo those 

him succeeded Mr. John Lathrop, who was their minister in 1633. In this 
society several persons, finding that tlie congregtttion kept not to its first prin- 
ciples of separation ; and being also convinced that baptism was- not to be 
administered to infants, but to such as professed faith in Christ, desired that 
they might be dismissed from that communion, and allowed to form a dis- 
tinct congregation, tx\ such order as was most agreeable to their own' sen- 
timents. 

"The church considering they were now grown very numerous, and so 
more than could in those times of persecution conveniently meet together; 
and beheving also that those persons acted from a principle of conscience, 
and not fi-om obstinacy, agreed trr allow them the liberty they desired, and 
that they should be constituted a distinct church ; which was performed 
SepLl2, 1633. And as they believed that baptism was not rightly ad/- 
Tninistered to in/ants, so they looked upon the baptism which they had at 
that age as invalid, whereupon j7iost all of them received a new bap- 
tism, [by being immersed m water on a personal profession of repentance 
and faith.] Their minister was Mr. John Spilsbury. What number 
there were is uncertain, because in the mentio-ning of about twenty men and 
women, it is added, 'with divers of others.' " — Hist, of Eng. Bap. vol. i. 
p. 138.— 1811. 



LIFE OF MIITON4 59 

who were above them ; haughty tyrants, and bloody op- 
pressors to those whom they could ensnare by their et 
cetcera oath, or get within the purlieus of the High Com- 
mission Court? And was it wonderful that every British 
heart, and especially the hearts of Protestant dissenters, 
rejoiced when these tyrants, who had oppressed them for 
nearly a century, fell into disgrace, and were pronounced, 
as to their temporal and spiritual dignity, to be public 
nuisances? However " hard the measure," no impartial 
and honest Briton but what will say that it was strictly 
just. And what English heart now, but will raise a 
prayer to God — who hears the prayer of the humble, and 
who is always ready to help the cppressed, and to con- 
found the oppressor — •' So let all thine enemies perish, oh, 
God! hut let them that love thee he as the sun when hegoeth 
forth in his might P^ Judges, v. 31. 

We are now arrived at the year 1644, and find our 
hero again employed as the defender of the liberties of 
his countrymen. The work which he published he en- 
titled, " Areopagitica, or an Oration to the Parliament of 
England for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing." It is 
not improbable but the following circumstances, recorded 
in the Journals of the House of Lords for 1644, produced 
that extraordinary display of mind. "Ordered, that the 
gentleman-usher attending this house, shall repair to the 
Lord Mayor of London, and the master and wardens of 
the Stationers' Company, to let them know, that this 
House expects a speedy account of them, what they have 
done in finding out the author, printer, or publisher of the 
scandalous libel." 

" The wardens of the Stationers' Company gave the 
house an account, 'that they had used their best endeav- 
ours to find out the printer and author of the scandalous 
libel ; but they cannot yet make any discovery thereof, 



60 LIFE OF MILTON. 

the letter being so common a letter ;' and further com- 
plained of the frequent printing of scandalous books, by 
divers, as Hezekia Woodward and John Milton." 

*' Hereupon it is ordered, that it be referred to Mr. Jus- 
tice Bacon, to examine the said Woodwa7'd and Milton, 
and such others as the master and wardens of the Sta- 
tioners' Company shall give information of concerning 
the printing of books and pamphlets ; and to examine also 
what they know concerning the libel, who was the author, 
printer and publisher of it. And the gentleman-usher 
shall attach the parties, and bring them before the judges ; 
and the Stationers are to be present at their examination, 
and give evidence against them." 

On June 31, "Mr. Justice Bacon informed the house 
of some paper which Ezeckiell Woodward confessed he 
made. Hereupon it is ordered he shall be released, 
giving his own bond to appear before this house when 
he shall be summoned." It does not appear that Milton 
was brought up. 

The length to which the Presbyterians carried their 
zeal to suppress libels, may be judged of from the follow- 
ing entry in the Journals, the 12th of July, 1644. " A 
book entitled Comfort for Believers about their Sins and 
Troubles, by John Archer, M. A. sometime preacher at 
Lombard. street." The assembly denounced it as blas- 
phemous ; and the Lords ordered it to be burnt by the 
hands of the common hangman, and all the copies of it 
to be called in. 

It was necessary, that before any book could be printed, 
it should receive the imprimatur of some person author- 
ised by the government ; and subject of course to be de- 
prived, by the same power, of any emolument which he 
might derive from his office. The object proposed by 
Milton was, to procure the most entire liberty of the 



LIFE OP MILTON, 61 

press, subject to a liability to prosecution, should that lib- 
erty be employed for licentious or injurious practices^ 
such as blasphemy, or libel, or immorality ; and if the 
printer or publisher were found guilty^ to be punished 
with a specified fine. 

In this his immortal work, even more so than by his 
exposures of prelatical rank in the church, he greatly 
served the cause of rational, restrained liberty : because, 
if the pi-ess be free, we dare bishops, or any others, to be 
oppressive. In those he lops off the branches, and re- 
moves the excrescences of arbitrary power ; but in this 
he lays the axe to the root of the tree : — in those he cor- 
rected the diseases of the body politic ; in this he infuses 
new blood into the system, by which he at once hurled 
oppression to the ground, and introduced the means of 
producing 'political strength and beauty, and preserving 
civil and religious life and liberty. It is in this work that 
he introduces Galileo, and his hard and cruel fate. He 
says : " There it was, [Italy] that I found and visited the 
famous Galileo, grown old a prisoner to the Inquisition, 
for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan 
and Dominican licenccrs thought. And though I knew 
that England was then groaning loudest under the pre- 
latical yoke, nevertheless I took it for a pledge of future 
happiness, that other nations were so persuaded of her 
liberty. Yet was it beyond my hope, that those worthies 
who were then breathing in her air, should be her leaders 
to such a deliverance as shall never be forgotten by any 
revolution of time that this world hath to finish." 

He first proves that the ancient Republics of Greece 
and Italy never prohibited any but immoral, defamatory, 
or atheistical publications. Nor did they judge of those 
crimes, by inferences or inuendoes ; as, for instance, they 
never suppressed the writings of the Epicureans, which 



62 LIFE OF MILTON. 

denied the doctrine of Providence and a future state, if 
they did not publish their formal doubts or denials of the 
existence of a Deity. Yet he argued, that it was beyond 
contradiction, that those nations maintained an excellent 
government, distributing public and private justice, and 
abounding in all knowledge and virtue, infinitely above 
those who have been, in modern times, the purgers, cor- 
rupters or executioners of books ! 

The Roman Emperors, he states, were tyrants ; and 
none but tyrants would imitate their conduct, or think of 
quoting them as examples. 

He remarks, in respect to the primitive Christians, that 
tliey observed no uniformity in regard to this subject. 
At first they encouraged the reading of all the heathen 
writers, but prohibited those which were heretical among 
themselves ; afterwards they contended for the propriety 
of confuting the books of heretics, and suppressing the 
heathen works, even if ihey did not relate to religion ; 
as he mentions a Carihagenian council, about A. D. 400, 
when even the bishops were prohibited from reading the 
works of the heathen writers. He shows, that had that 
infamous and barbarous resolution been thoroughly exe- 
cuted, as it was, to a considerable degree, to what a depth 
of meanness it would have reduced the world, depriving 
it of so many inimitable historians, orators, philosophers, 
and poets ; the repositories of inestimable treasures, con- 
sisting of warlike and heroic deeds, the best and wisest 
rules of government, the most perfect rules and examples 
of eloquence and politeness, and such divine lectures of 
wisdom and virtue, that the loss of Cicero's works alone, 
or those of Livy, could not be repaired by all the fathers 
of the church. He proceeds to show, that where, in pro- 
cess of time, the clergy were exalted even above the chief 
^lagistrate himself, they burnt and destroyed every thing 



LIFE OF MILTON, 63 

which did not favour their power or superstition ; and laid 
a restraint upon reading, as well as upon writing, without 
excepting the very Bible. Nor did they stop in their 
course till the inquisition reduced this abominable practice 
to the perfection of an art, by expurgatory indexes and 
licensing. He then shows, that all the consequences of 
such tyranny had been produced in England, such as de- 
priving men of their natural liberty, stifling their parts, 
introducing of ignorance, engrossing all advantages to 
one party, and the like ; and that all these objections had 
been made by the Presbyterians against the prelates be- 
fore the civil wars ; but now, finding themselves in the 
bishop's pulpits, and possessed of their power, ihey exer- 
cised the same authority, and even with more intolerable 
rigour and severity. Then, after having given the history 
of the origin, progress, and mischief of licensing, he 
proves, that if we regard the reasons usually alleged, to 
prohibit the publishing of any books besides, on the sub- 
jects he first excepted, such as the fear of wresting, or 
mistaking their meaning, then we must be prohibited from 
reading the Bible, the Fathers, or almost any other sort 
of books. He then, in the second place, shows that the 
ends proposed by licensing the press, could not by that 
means be attained. In the third place he contends, that 
no man is fit to be a licenser, nor in any one single facul- 
ty, unless he is universally learned, or a better scholar 
than all the authors whose labours he is to licence ; and 
that admitting these things to be possible, which he did 
not grant, he would neither find strength nor time enough 
to peruse all books ; and should he use deputies, he was 
most likely to have ingorant, lazy, and mercenary fellows. 
He then points out the various discouragements which 
follow to all literature, and any new discoveries which is 
the pretence, in popish countries, and even to the not re- 



^4 I-IFE OF MILTON. 

printing of the ancient authors in any language, and 
comes to the conclusion, that licensing is both unjust in 
itself, and dishonourable to a free government. He ex- 
poses this practice with all the felicity of language, by a 
number of different representations. " A man," says he, 
« may be an heretic in the truth ; and if he believes only 
because his pastor says so, or the ' Assembly' so deter- 
mines, without knowing any other reason, though his 
behef be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his 
heresy. There is not any burden that some would glad- 
lier put off to another, than the charge and care of their 
religion. Who knows not that there be some Protestants 
who live in as arrant implicit faith as any lay papist of 
Loretto ? A wealthy man, addicted to his pleasures and 
his profits, finds religion to be a traffic so entangled, and 
of so many piddling accounts, that of all mysteries he 
cannot bear to keep a stock going upon that trade ; what 
does he therefore, but resolves to give over toiling, and 
to find out some factor, to whose care and credit he may 
commit the whole management of his religious affairs, 
and that he must be some divine of note and estimation! 
To him he adheres, resigns the whole warehouse of his 
religion, with all the locks and keys, into his custody, 
and indeed makes the very person of that man his reli- 
gion, esteem his associating with him a sufficient evidence 
and commendation of his own piety ; so that a man may 
say his religion is now no more within himself, but is be- 
come a dividual moveable, and goes and comes near him 
as that good man frequents the house. He entertains 
him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him ; his religion 
comes home at night, prays, is liberally supped, and 
sumptuously laid to sleep; rises, and is saluted, and 
(after the mamlsy, or some well-spiced beverage, and 
better breakfasted than he whose morning appetite would 



LIFE OF MILTON. 65 

have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and Jeru- 
salem,) his religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his 
kind entertainer in the shop, trading all day without his 
religion ! 

*'Nor much better will the consequence be among the 
clergy themselves. It is no new thing, never heard of 
before, for a parochial minister v/ho has his reward, and 
is at his Hercules Pillars in a warm benefice, to be easily 
inclinable (if he has nothing else to rouse up his studies) 
to finish his circuit in an English concordance, and a 
Topic folio. The gatherings and sayings of a sober 
graduateship, a harmony, and a Catina, treading the con- 
stant round of certain common doctrinal heads, attended 
with their uses, motives, marks, and means ; out of which, 
as out of an alphabet, or scl fa mi, by forming and trans- 
forming, joining and disjoining variously, a little book- 
craft, and two hours' meditation, he might furnish him- 
self unspeakably to the performance of more than a 
weekly charge of sermoning ; not to reckon up the in- 
finite helps of interlinearies, breviaries, cynopses, and 
other loitering gear. But, as for the multitude of ser- 
mons already printed on every text that is not difficult, 
he need never fear penury of pulpit provision ; yet if his 
rear and flanks be not inspected, if his back-door be not 
secured by the rigid Licenser, but that a bold book may 
now and then issue forth, and give an assault to some of 
his old collections in their trenches, it will concern him 
to keep waking, to stand in watch, to set good guard and 
centinels about his received opinions, to walk round and 
counter-round with his fellow-inspectors, fearing lest any 
of his flock be seduced, who also then would be better in- 
structed, better exercised and disciplined : and Godsend 
that the fear of this diligence, which must then be used, 
do not make us effect the laziness of a licensing church." 



66 LIFE OF MILTON. 

The following burst of noble eloquence is perhaps on- 
rivalled in sublimity of thought and adaptedness of words : 
" Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation 
rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking 
her invincible locks : methinks I see her as an eagle 
mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled 
eyes at the full mid-day beam ; purging and unsealing 
her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly 
radiance ; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking 
birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about 
amazed at what she means*, and in their envious gabble 
would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.'* 

This most energetic appeal, and most poignant satire, 
produced no effect upon a contracted, presbyterian gov- 
ernment. That they remained inexorably determined to 
put chains and locks upon the printing presses, appeared 
from the following circumstance. The arguments used 
by Milton, induced one Mabal, a licenser, to oflfer his 
reasons against licensing, and at his own request he was 
permitted to give up the office !f 

♦It is amusing to read the remarks of Si/mmons on this passage. He 
says, " the passage should have ended with ' means.' The imagery is 
spoilt and broken by the concluding words, ' sects and schisms.' " Yes, 
it might have been more elegant; but then his object in writing it would 
have been lost : he meant, that " the birds who loved the twilight" should 
take a hint, that they could not bear that light of truth which led men off 
from the established church. 

tThe following history, from a note in the 4th vol. of Blackstone's Com- 
mentaries, p. 152, (eleventh edition,) shows that Corruption is a monster 
that will not die easily, when there are paid servants of the state to nourish 
it, and cherish it, and keep it alive. — "The art of printing, soon after its 
introduction, was looked upon (as well in England as in other countries) 
as merely a matter of state, and subject to the coercion of the crown. It 
was therefore regulated with us by the king's proclamation, prohibitions, 
charters of privilege, and of license, and finally, by the decrees of the 



LIFE OF MILTON. 67 

In his thirty-fifth year, he entered into the marriage state, 
at Whitsuntide, 1643, with MARY,the daughter of Richard 
Powell, of Forest-Hill, near Shotover in Oxfordshire : he 
was a justice of the peace, and a person of great respect- 
abihty in that part of the country. Toland says : " But 
whether it was that this young woman, accustomed to a 
large jovial family, could not iive in a philosophical retire- 
ment ; or that she was not perfectly satisfied with the per- 
son of her husband : or lastly, that because all her rela* 
tions were all addicted to the royal interest, his democra- 
tical principles were disagreeable to their humour, (nor is 
it improbable the father repented of his match, upon the 
prospect of some success on the king's side, who then had 
his head-quarters at Oxford)or whatever was the reason, 'tis 
certain, that after he had enjoyed her company at London 
for about a month, she was invited by her friends to spend 
the rest of the summer in the country : to which he con- 
sented, on condition that she returned at Michaelmas. 
Yet he saw her not at the time appointed, and after re- 



couit of star-chamber, which hmitedthe number of printers, and of presses 
which each should employ, and prohibited new publications, unless pre- 
viously approved by the proper licensers. On the demolition of this odious 
jurisdiction ia 1641, the long parliament of Charles I. after their rupture 
with that prince, assumed the same powers as the star-chamber exercised 
with respect to the licensing of books.; and in 1643, 1647, 1649, and 1652, 
(Scobell I. 44, 134; II. 83, 232;) issued their ordinances for that purpose 
founded principally on the star-chamber decree of 1637. In 1662 was 
passed the statute 13 and 14 Car. II. c 33, which (with some few altera- 
tions) was copied from th^i parliamentary ordinances. This act expired in 
1679, but was revived by statute 1 Jac. fl. c. 17, and continued till 1692. 
It was then continued for two years longer by statute 4th W. and JVI. c. 24. 
But though frequent attempts were made by the government to revive it, 
in the subsequent part of that reign, (Com. Journ. II. Feb. 1694, 26th Nov. 
1695, 22nd Oct. 1696, 9th Feb. 1697, 3lst Jan. 1698,) yet the parliament 
•resisted it so strongly, that it finally expired, and the press became properly 
free in 1694, and has ever since so continued." 



68 LIFE OF MILTOPf* 

ceiving several of his letters without sending him any an- 
swer, she did at length positively refuse to come, dismiss- 
ing his messenger with contempt." 

That a man of his high and honourable spirit, should 
have been incensed at such contemptuous conduct, from 
so near and endeared a companion as his wife, may be 
easily conceived, and ought not to be condemned as im- 
proper resentment : whether all the steps which he took 
in consequence were alike justifiable, will admit of a seri- 
ous question, and respecting which there will perhaps be 
different opinions. 

As all his attempts to induce his wife to return to his 
house proved ineffectual, he thought his own reputation 
and repose demanded that he should declare her to be no 
longer his wife ! It is said that he endeavoured to make 
his constrained widowhood, for nearly four years, as easy 
and cheerful as he could ; to which the sprightly wit and 
good sense of Lady Margaret Lee,, daughter of the Earl 
o£ Marlborough, greatly contributed. He frequently visi- 
ted her ladyship ; and the high esteem he entertained for 
her, has been well expressed in a sonnet found among his 
occasional poems. 

Having taken his firm resolution to repudiate his wife,, 
and never to receive her back again, he thought it proper 
pubHcly to attempt a justification of this step, and there- 
fore published, in the year 1644, his work on the " Doc- 
trine and Discipline of Divorce. "^ This he dedicated to 
the Parliament, and the Assembly of Divines at Westmin- 
ster ; hoping that as they were employed in promoting a 
general reformation of the kingdom, they might take this 
subject also of domestic liberty into consideration ; being 
of opinion that all the hoasied freedom of public judica- 
tures signified little, if the mean while the husband must 
be obliged to submit to a kind of servitude in domestic life,, 



XIFE or MILTON, 69 

below the dignity of a man, or, as he expressed it, "a 
disconsolate household captivity, without refuge or re- 
demption." His design was to show that there are other 
sufficient reasons for divorce besides adultery, and that to 
prohibit any sort of divorce, but such as are excepted by 
Moses, is unjust, and against the reason of the law. The 
grand position he maintains is, " That indisposition , unfits 
ness, and contrary humours, proceeding from any unchange- 
able cause in nature, hindering, and always likely to hin- 
der, the main ends and lenejits of conjugal society, that 
is to say, peace and delight, are greater reasons of divorce 
than ADULTERY, or natural frigidity, provided there he a 
mutual consent for separation. ^^ 

On this book appearing, the clergy in general declaimed 
against it, charging its author with atheism, heresy, lewd- 
ness, &c. &c. They daily instigated the Parliament, but 
in vain, to pass their censure of condemnation upon it ; 
and at length one of them, on a day of public humiliation, 
told them that "there was a wicked book abroad, which 
deserved to be burnt, and that among their other sins they 
ought to repent : it had not yet been branded with a mark 
of their displeasure." This, and the opposition to it by 
some other ministers, led him to publish his Tetrachordon, 
which also was dedicated to the Parliament. This was 
an exposition of the four chief passages of Scripture that 
treat of marriage, viz. Gen. i. 27 : ii. 18, &c.; Deut. xxiv. 
1 ; Matt. V. 31, &c.; and Matt. xix. 3, &c. Other pas- 
sages from the Epistles he also occasionally explains, and 
then produced the authority of some eminent men who 
favoured his opinion. The following lines are upon this 
subject : — 

" I did but prompt the ag'e to quit their clogs, 
By the known rules of antient hberty; 
When strait a barbarous noise environs me, 
7* 



70 LIFE OF MILTON, 

Of owls, and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs : 
As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs. 
Railed at Latona'^s twin-born progfny, 
Which after held the Sun and Moon in fee ; 
But this is got by casting pearls to hogs, 
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, 
And still revolt when truth would set them free ; 
License they mean when they cry Liberty : 
For who loves that, must first be wise and goods, 
But from that mark how far they roave we see, 
For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood."" 



He published yet another piece on this subject, entitled^ 
"The Judgments of the famous Reformer, Martin Bucer,. 
touching Divorce, extracted out of the second book of the 
kingdom of Christ, dedicated to king Edward the Sixth." 
Bucer exactly agreed with Milton on this subject, though 
the latter had not seen it till after the publication of his 
first volume concerning it. 

The fourth book on the subject of Divorce was his Co- 
lasterion, a reply to one of his anonymous answerers,. 
" who," it is said, " added to all the dulness and ignorance 
imaginable, the greatest degree imaginable of bitterness 
and malice." It is probable Milton would not have 
humbled himself to answer this, but for the circumstance 
of the Rev. J. Caryl, the commentator on the Book of 
Job, having put to it his imprimateio', adding to it his own 
condemnation of Milton's opinions. How very angry he 
was with Mr. Caryl will appear from the following taunt- 
ing reproach : " Mr. Licenser, you are reputed a man 
discrete enough, that is, to an ordinary competence in all 
these : but now your turn is to hear what your own hand 
has earned you, that when you suffered this nameless 
hangman to cast into public such a spiteful contumely up. 
on a name and person deserving of the church and state 
equally to yourself, and one who has done more to the 



LIFE OF MILTON. 71 

present advancement of your own tribe, than you or many 
of them have done for themselves ; you forgot to be either 
honest, religious or discrete. Whatever the state might 
do concerning it, supposing it were a matter to expect evil 
from it, I should not doubt to meet among them with wise, 
and honourable, and knowing men. But as to this brute 
libel, so much the more impudent and lawless for the 
abused authority which it bears, I say again, that I abo- 
minate the censures of rascals and their licensers," 

To prove himself a firm believer in the maxims which 
he had produced on this most provoking occasion, he 
was seriously negociating another marriage with Miss 
Davis, a young lady of great wit and beauty. This, how- 
ever, was prevented by a most unexpected occurrence. 
Being one day at the house of a relation named Black- 
borough, in St. Martin's Le Grand, whom he often visited, 
he was extremely surprised to meet his wife there, whom 
he had never expected to see again. She threw herself 
at his feet, confessed her fault, and with tears intreated 
his forgiveness. At first he appeared to be unmoved and 
inexorable ; but at length the generosity of his temper, 
and the intercession of some mutual friends, conquered 
his anger, and a perfect reconciliation took place, with 
the promise of oblivion of every thing which had happen- 
ed. As a proof of his having forgiven her and her 
relations, who it is most probable had been the principal 
cause of all his domestic troubles, he received his wife's 
father and mother, and several of her brothers and sisters, 
into his own house, their political party having declined 
in influence. This was more than they could have ex- 
pected from him, as they had doubtless been the occasion 
of separating "those whom God had joined together," 
and had thus exposed themselves to a divine malediction : 
** Cursed is he that parteih man and wife," Milton 



72 LIFE OF MILTON. 

kindly entertained them until their own affairs were in a 
better condition. 

The scene which we have been constrained to survey, 
is most humiliating and confounding. One is ready to 
say, Oh ! that oblivion had in kindness cast its mantle 
over such disgusting details. The champion of a nation's 
right, the fearless and undaunted assertor of civil and 
religious liberty, and the successful advocate of the un- 
shackled press, himself a domestic tyrant ! objecting to 
the restraint with which God and nature had guarded the 
marriage union, and refusing to the wife of his bosom, 
the companion of his life, those equal rights to which with 
himself she was justly entitled. " Yet she is thy compan- 
ion, and the wife of thy covenant : and did he not make 
ONE ?" (Malachi ii. 14.) Milton and his vyife did not, it 
is evident, understand the principles of the marriage cov- 
enant : they were not " one ! but two /" Nor did he treat 
her, so far as it appears, as if she was his " companion,^' 
but his household slave ! Nor did he fulfil the conditions 
of the ^^ covenant,'' into which he had voluntarily entered 
when she consented to become his wife, a covenant of 
reciprocal duties, and of equal privileges. His biogra. 
phers say, that Mrs. Milton " refused to return ;" per- 
haps she was justifiable in that refusul : she might have 
been treated superciliously and contemptuously by her 
husband. 

" He wrote several letters to her which she did not 
answer." It would have been better had he paid her an 
affectionate visit. He then sent a servant, doubtless de- 
manding her from her father, and then " she positively 
refused to come and dismissed the messenger with con- 
tempt !" Admitting the supposition to be just, that he 
had sent his lordly commands, requiring her submission 
to his authority, she acted rightly and with a becoming 



LIFE OF MILTON. 73 

spirit. He became incensed at this, and resolved, out of 
regard to his " honor" and " repose," to repudiate her 
as no longer worthy his confidence or affection. A hus- 
band who could act with this haughty feeling towards his 
companion, must have strange notions of what, in such a 
case, was honourable ; and as seeking repose by such 
means, was the most imlucky plan he could have adopted, 
as the sequel abundantly shows. An obedient regard to 
the directions of the Apostle Paul, (Eph. v. 21 — 25) would 
have soon settled all this strife, or, more properly speak- 
ing would have prevented it altogether. 

In this matter Milton appears like Samson when shorn 
of his Nazarite locks — become " weak, and as other 
men." Milton's great strength, like that of Samson, lay 
in his knowledge of, and obedience to, the principles of re- 
vealed truth. While he adhered closely to these, he 
snapped with ease " the green withs," and the " new 
ropes ;" and when even the " seven locks of his head 
were woven with a web, however closely fastened, " he 
went away with both the pin of the beam and the web." 
He despatched with almost infinite ease all the shophistry, 
and learning, and opprobrium employed by the bishops 
and others to bind and afflict him ; 



Who sino-le combatant 



Duel'd their armies rank'd in proud array, 
Himself an army, now an unequal match 
To save himself against n coward arm'd 
At one spear's length. O ever failing trust 
In mortal strength ! And oh ! what not in man 
Deceivable and vain V* 

But on this subject of divorce, oh! how weak are his 
struggles, nerveless his arguments, how pettish his tern* 

* Samson Agonistes. 



'74 LIFE OF MILTON. 

per, how peevish his language! The weakest of his 
opponents, in this controversy, were his match, more than 
his equal ; and like Samson too, he does not appear to 
have been aware that ^'the Lord had departed from himf" 
That he who had treated the Fathers with such contempt 
should now have appealed to them ; and even to an 
apocryphal writer for support ! That so powerful a mind 
should have rested an argument in relation io positive law j 
upon the shifting ground o^ expediency ! Oh ! what mer- 
riment it must have afforded to his enemies to see this 
mental giant bound with fetters of brass, and grinding in 
the prison house of Gaza ! And how must he have been 
annoyed by the noise of the "owls, and cuckoos, asses, 
apes, and dogs!" Alas! that he should have been en- 
tirely ignorant of the ungodly temper which he was him- 
self manifesting, and of the erroneous and inconsistent 
principles which he was pleading. Is it not suprising 
that he could not see his own face in the mirror of his 
own transparent lines upon this subject? namely, those 

" That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, 
And still revolt when truth would make them free ; 
Licence they mean when they cry Liberty ; 
For who loves that^ must first be wise and good." 

CowPER, though a bachelor, understood this subject of 
" Domestic Duties," better than Milton the married man. 
In his inimitable little piece, entitled ^' Mutual forbear, 
ance necessary to the Marriage state ;" he has in fine satire 
exposed the trifling circumstances which often lead to 
"jar and tumult and intestine war." He there says, in 
his own best manner : 

" Alas ! and is domestic strife, 
That sorest ill of human life 
A plague so little to be feared, 



LIFE OF MILTON. 75 

As to be wantonly incurred, 

To gratify a fretful passion, 

On every trivial provocation ? 

The kindest and the happiest pair 

Will find occasion to forbear ; 

And something, every day they live, 

To pity, and perhaps^/brg-ire." 

It appears most evident to me, that in regard to his 
treatment of his wife, Milton was neither " wise nor 
good ;" and tliat he unconsciously, while pleading with 
the parliament to grant him " domestic liberty,^^ was 
seeking a " license'^ to absolve him from the just and 
equitable restraints of the laws of God and man. And 
oh ! what a closing scene, when his obstinate wife, rath- 
er than see her place occupied by another, bathed in 
tears, falls at the feet of her still inexorable husband, 
supplicating his forgiveness ! It was well for both parties 
that " his hair begun to grow again after he had been 
shaven ; rather that his God had mercifully returned to 
him, and stirred up the generosity of his nature to forgive 
his humbled companion, who seems to have at least con- 
sented to receive forgivenovss upon the condition of being 
" obliged to accept a kind of servitude at home below the 
dignity of a woman T^ And this domestic lord received to 
his bosom a slave, instead of an equal ! At all events, I 
rejoice that they were again reconciled, and that our 
English Samson had afterwards sufficient strength, as he 
evinced in his Defences of the People of England, by re- 
moving the two pillars of passive obedience and non-re- 
sistance, to pull down the temple of despotism upon the 
lords of the Philistines ! 

The first of the before-named elaborate works, on this 
most painful and humiliating subject, as has been men- 
tioned, he dedicated *'To the Parliament of England, with 



76 LIFE OF MILTON. 

the Assembly of Divines at Westminister." He thus 
commences his appeal : " If it were seriously askt, (and 
it would be no untimely question, renowned Parliament, 
select Assembly,) who, of all teachers and masters that 
ever have taught, halh drawn most disciples after him, 
both in religion and manners, it might not be untruly an- 
swered— Custom. Though Virtue be commended for the 
most persuasive in her theory, and Conscience, as the 
plain demonstration of the spirit, finds most evincing; 
yet, whether it be the secret of divine will, or the original 
blindness we are born in, so it happens, for the most part, 
that Custo?n still is silently received for the best instructor. 
You it concerns chiefly, worthies in Parliament, on whom, 
as on our deliverers, all our grievances and cares, by the 
merits of your eminence and fortitude are devolved; me 
it concerns next, having, with much labour and faithful 
diligence, first found out, or at least, with a fearless and 
communicative candour, first publisht, to the mamfest 
o-ood of Christendom, that which, calling to mmd every 
tiling mortal and immortal, I believe unfainedly to be 
true. Let not other men think their conscience bound to 
search continually after truth, to pray for enlightenings 
from above, to publish what they think they have so at- 
tained, and debar me from conceiving myself tied by the 

same duties." 

Having asserted that the inviolability of marriage had 
no other law but custotn, he then states, in few words, the 
arguments of his opponents, founded upon the practice 
of divorces having been permitted by Moses, though not 
sanctioned by tae lav. of God. "This," he says, "is 
the common doctrine, that adulterous and injurious di- 
vorces were not connived only, but, with eye open, out- 
law'd of old foi l.ardness of heart. But that opinion, I 
trust, by this following argument hath been well read, 



IIPE OF MILTON. 77 

*WiU be left for one of the mysteries of an indigent Anti- 
Christ to farm out incest by, and those his other tributary 
pollutions. The superstition of the Papist is, touch not, 
taste not, when God bids both ; and ours is part not, sepa- 
rate not, when God and charity both permit and command. 
< Let all your things he done in charity,^ saith St. Paul ; 
and his Master saith, ' she is the fulfilling of the law ,•' yet 
now a civil, an indifferent, a somewhat dissuaded law of 
marriage must be forc't upon us to fulfil, not only without 
charity, but against her. No place in heaven or earth, 
except hell, where charity may not enter ; yet marriage, 
the ordinance of our solace and contentment, the remedy 
of our loneliness, will not admit now of either charity or 
mercy to come in, and mediate or pacific the fierceness 
of this gentle ordinance, the unremedied lowliness of this 
remedy. Advise ye well, supreme senate, if charity be 
thus excluded and expulst, how ye will defend the un- 
tainted honor of your own actions and proceedings. 
Whatever else ye can enact, will scarce concern a third 
part of the British name ; but the benefit and good of this 
your magnanimous example, will easily spread far beyond 
the banks of Tweed, and the Norman isles. It would 
not be the first or the second time, since our ancient 
Druides, by whom this island was the cathedral of phi- 
losophy in France, left off" their pagan rites, that England 
hath had this honour vouchsaft from heav'n, to give re- 
formation to the world. Who was it but our English 
Constaniine, that baptized the Roman Empire ? Who 
was it but the Northumbrian Willibrodr and Winfride, of 
Devon, with their followers, were the first apostles of 
Germany ? Who but Alcuim and WicJclif, our country- 
men, opened the eyes of Europe, the one in arts, the 
other in religion ? Let not England forget her prece- 
dence of teaching nations how to live. For me, as far 

8 



78 LIFE OF MILTON. 

as my part leads me, I have already the greatest gain of 
assurance and inward satisfaction, to have done in this, 
nothing unworthy of an honest life, and studies well em- 
ployed. Willi that event, among the wise and right un- 
derstanding of men I am secure : but how among the 
drove of custom and prejudice this will be relisht — by 
such whose capacity, since their youth run ahead into the 
easie creek of a system or a medulla, sails there at will, 
under the blown phisiognomy of their unlaboured rudi- 
ments — for them, whatever their tast€ will be, I have 
also surety sufficient, from the entire league there hath 
always been between formal ignorance and grave obsti- 
nacy. 

"I seek not to seduce the simple and illiterate; my 
errand is to find out the choicest and the learnedest, who 
have this high gift of wisdom, to answer solidly, or to be 
convinc't. I crave it from the piety, the learning, and 
the prudence, which is housed in this place. It might, 
perhaps, have been more fitly written in another tongue ; 
and I had done so, but that the esteem I have for my 
country's judgment, and the love I bear to my native 
language, to serve it first with what I endeavour, made 
me speak it thus, ere I assay the verdict of outlandish 
readers. And perhaps also here I might have ended 
nameless, but that the address of these lines, chiefly to 
the Parliament of England, might have seemed ungrateful, 
not to acknowledge by whose religious care, unwearied 
watchfulness, courageous and heroick resolutions, I enjoy 
the peace and studious leisure to remain, the Honourer 
and Attendant of their noble worth and virtues, — Johx 
Milton." 

In the preface he thus fairly states his design : — " This 
therefore shall be the task and period of this discourse, — 
to prove, first, that other reasons of divorce, besides 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



79 



adultery, were, by the law of Moses, and are yet to be 
allowed by the christian magistrate, as a piece of justice ; 
and that the words of Christ are not hereby contraried. 
Next, that to prohibit absolutely any divorce whatsoever, 
except those which Moses excepted, is against the reason 
of the law. Not that license and levity, and an uncon- 
sented breach of faith should herein be countenanc'd ; 
but that some conscionable and tender pitty might be had 
of those, who have, unwarily, and in a thing which they 
have never practised before, made themselves the bond- 
men of a luckless and helpless matrimony. This only is 
desired of them, who are minded to judge hardly of thus 
maintaining, that they would be still, and hear all oui, nor 
think it equal to answer deliberate reason with sudden ^ 
heat and noise ; remembering this, that many truths, 
now of renowned esteem and credit, had their birth and 
beginning once from singular and private thoughts ; 
whiiie the most of men were otherwise possest, and had 
the fate, at first, to be generally exploded, and exclaimed 
on by many violent opposers." 

In the first chapter he lays down this position : " That 
indisposition, unfitness, or contrariet}'^ of mind, arising 
from a cause in nature unchangeable, hindering, and 
ever likely to hinder, the main benefits of conjugal soci- 
«ty, which are solace and peace, is a greater reason of 
divorce than natural frigidity, especially if there be no 
children." In confirmation of this, he quotes, with ap- 
probation, " what learned Fagius^^ hath said upon this 
law : — ' The law of God,' says he, ' permitted divorce for 
the help of humane weakness. For every one that of 
necessity separates cannot live single. That Christ de- 
nied divorce to his own, hinders us not ; for what is that 
to the unregenerate, who hath not attained such perfection ? 
J-^et not the remedy be despised, that was given to weak- 



80 LIFE OF MIlTOSr. 

ness. And when Christ saith, who marries the divorc''t 
commits adultery, it is to be understood, ifhe had any^ 
plot in the divorce/" 

In the second chapter he says : — "And what this chief 
end was of creating woman, to be joined with man, his 
own instituting words declare, and are infallible to inform 
us what is marriage, and what is no marriage, unless we 
can think them set there to no purpose. ' It is not good/ 
said he, ' iJiat man should he alone ; I will maJce him an 
help meet for him.^ From which words, so plain, less 
cannot be concluded, than, that in God's intentions, a 
meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and noblest 
end of marriage." The inference which he draws from 
this, is, that the want of a suitable disposition of mind in a 
wife, yreventing her from being an " help meet/'' is a suffix 
cient cause, according to the law of Moses, forgiving hei 
a bill of divorcement, and putting her away. 

In chapter the third he says : — " but some are ready to 
object, that the disposition ought seriously to be consid- 
ered before. But let them know again, that, for all the 
wariness that can be used, it may befal a discreet man to 
be mistaken in his choice, and we have plenty of exam- 
pies. Whereas the sober man may easily chance to 
meet with a mind, to all other due consideration inacces- 
sible, and to all the more estimable and superior purposes 
of matrimony useless, and almost lifeless : and what a 
solace, what a fit help such a consort would be, through 
the whole life of a man, is more painful to conjecture 
than to have experienced." 

In the fourth chapter he attempts to prove, that, if a 
man has, by mistake, taken for his wife " a mute and 
spiritless mate," who cannot, as " a speaking help," be 
such " a ready and reviving associate in marriage, as 
shall soothe all the sorrows and casualties of life," he is 



LIFE OF MILTON. 81 

fully justified in putting such an one away, and taking 
one who is suitable for " the note which now directs him, 
and the loneliness which leads him still powerfully to 
seek a fit help, hath not the least grain of a sin in it^ if 
he be worthy to understand himself." 

In chapter the fifth, he pursues his argument in showing 
the temptations to which a man would find himself ex- 
posed, who having " not neglected that sure entrance 
which was to be obtained, to the comforts and enjoyments 
of a contented marriage." — " When he shall find himself 
bound fast to an uncomplying discord of nature, or as it 
often happens to an image of earth and fleam, with whom 
he looked to be the co-partner of a sweet and gladsome 
society, and sees withal that this bondage is now inevita- 
ble, though he be almost the strongest christian, he will 
be ready to despair in virtue, and mutiny against Divine 
Providence," 

In chapter the sixth he is quhe metaphorical : — " And 
of matrimonial love, no doubt but that was chiefly meant, 
which by the ancient sages was thus parabled : That 
love, if he be not twin born, yet hath a brother named 
Anteros ; whom, while he seeks all about, his chance is 
to meet with many fails and feigning desires that wander 
singly, up and down in his likeness, &c. — shewing us 
that love in marriage cannot subsist without being mutual ; 
and where love cannot be, there can be left of wedlock 
nothing but the empty husk of an outside matrimony, as 
undelightful and unpleasing to God, as any other kind of 
hypocrisie. So far is his command from tying men to the 
observance of duties, which there is no help for, but they 
must be dissembled." In thia chapter he gives a fifth 
reason that an unsuitable disposition in a wife " hinders 
and disturbs the whole life of a christian." — " Who sees 
not therefore how much more christianly it would be to 
8* 



82 LIFE OF MILTOX. 

break by divorce that which is more broken by undue 
and forcible keeping, rather than to cover the altar of the 
Lord with continual tears, so that he regardeth not the offer- 
ing any more ; rather that this, the whole worship of a 
christian man's life should languish and fade way beneath 
the weight of an incurable grief and discouragements. He 
then shews that the reason which was given for divorcing 
an " Idolatress,"" which was, " lest his heart should be 
alienated from the true worship of God," applies with all 
its force, in the case of an unsuitable disposition in a wife ; 
" for in the account of God it comes all to one, that the 
wife looses him a servant, and therefore, by all the united 
force of the Decalogue, she ought to be disbanderf unless 
we must set marriage above God and charity, which is a 
doctrine of devils, no less than forbidding to marry." 

In the eighth chapter he undertakes to prove (from I 
Cor. chap, vii.) that " an idolatrous heretick wife ought 
to be divorced after a convenient time given for conven- 
ience." " With what a vehemence (he says) Job, the 
patientest of men, rejected the desperate councils of his 
wife; and Moses, the meekest, being thoroughly offended 
with the profane speeches of Zipporah, sent her back to 
her father ! But if they shall perpetually, at our elbow, 
seduce us from the true worship of God, or defile and 
daily scandalize our conscience by their hopeless contin- 
uance in misbelief, then even, in the due progress of rea- 
son, and that ever equal proportion which justice proceeds 
by, it cannot be imagined that this cited place commands 
less than a total and final separation from such an ad- 
herent, at least that no force should be used to keep 
them together ; while we remember that God com- 
manded Abraham to send away his irreligious wife and 
son, for the offences which they gave in a pious family : 
and it may be guest that David for a like cause dis- 



LIFE OF MILT03\% 83 

posed of Michal in such sort, as little differed from dis- 
mission." 

In the tenth chapter he undertakes to show, " that Adul- 
tery is not the greatest breach of Matrimony — that there 
may be other violations as great." — " I now," says he, 
" having shewn that disproportion, contrariety, or mean- 
ness of mind, may justly be divorced, by proving clearly 
that the prohibition thereof opposes the express end of 
God's institution," &c. In this chapter he attempts to 
prove, " that to prohibit divorce sought for natural cases, 
is against nature." — He says : " And that there is a 
hidden efficacie of love and hatred in man, as well as in 
other kinds, not moral, but natural, which though not al- 
ways in the choice, yet in the success of marriage will 
ever be most predominant, besides daily experience, the 
author of Ecdesiasticus, whom wisdom hath set him next 
to the Bible, acknowledges, xiii. 16. ' A man,' saith he, 
* will cleave to his like.' " 

In the eleventh chapter he undertakes to prove, "That 
sometimes continuance in marriage may be evidently the 
shortening or endangering of life to either party, both 
law and divinity concluding that life is to be preferred 
before marriage, the intended solace of life. 

In the twelfth chapter, I suspect we have the true 
causes assigned why Mrs. Milton had left, and refused 
to return to her disconsolate, solitary husband. " It is 
most sure," he says, " that some who are not plainly de- 
fective in body, yet are destitute of all other marriageable 
gifts, and consequently have not the calling to marry, &;c. 
Yet it is sure that many such, not of their own desire, hut hy 
the persuasion of friends, or not knowing themselves, do often 
enter into wedlock ; where, finding the difference at length 
between the duties of a married life, and the gifts of a single 
life, what unfitness of mind, what wearisomeness, what scru- 



.84 LIFE OP MILTON. 

pies and doubts to an incredible offence and displeasure are 
like to follow between^ may soon be imagined ; whom thus to 
shut up, and immure, and shut up together, the one with a 
mischosen mate, the other in a mistaken calling, is not a 
cause which wisdom and tenderness ought to use. As for 
the customs that some parents and guardians have of 
forcing marriages, it will be better to say nothing of such 
savage inhumanity but only thus — that the law which 
gives not all freedom of divorce to any creature indued 
with reason so assassinated, is next to cruelty." This 
supposed case I have no doubt draws back the curtain, 
and shows us the scene of family discord which, even 
during the honey-moon, existed in the house at the end of 
an alley, looking into a garden in Aldersgate Street ! 
" And like a bird that is hampered, he struggles to get 
loose." Quoting the words of our Lord, " All men can- 
not receive this saying, save they to whom it is given : he that 
is able to receive it, let him receive it. What saying is this 
which is left to a man's choice, to receive or not receive ? 
What but the married life ? Was our Saviour so mild 
and so favourable to the weakness of a single man, and 
is he turned on the sudden so rigorous and inexorable to 
the distresses and extremities of an ill wedded man ? Did 
he so graciously give leave to change the better single 
life for the worst married life ? Did he open to us this 
hazardous and accidental door of marriage, to shut upon 
us like the fate of death, without retracing or returning, 
without permitting to change the worst, most insupporta- 
ble, most unchristian mischance of marriages, for all the 
mischiefs and sorrows that could ensue, being an ordi- 
nance which was especially given as a cordial and exhi!- 
irating cup of solace, the better to bear our cup of afflic- 
tions? Questionless this were a hard-heartedness of 
undivorcing, worse than in the Jews, which, they say, 



LIFE OF MILTOJf. 85 

extorted the allowance from Moses, and is utterly disso- 
nant from all the doctrines of our Saviour." " Again," 
says he, " Christ himself tells us who should not be put 
asunder, namely, those whom God hath joined together. A 
plain solution of this great controversy, if men would but 
use their eyes. For whom is it that God may be said to 
join ? Only those where the minds are fitly disposed and 
enabled to maintain a cheerful conversation to the solace 
and love of each other, according as God intended and 
promised in the very first foundation of Matrimony ; / 
will make him a help meet for him. For surely what God 
intended and promised, that only can be thought to be 
his joining, and not the contrary." 

I acknowledge that I have drudged through this erro- 
neous pamphlet with much pain of heart ; and could have 
wished, had it been possible, to have gone backward and 
thrown a veil over such shameful reasonings, on a subject 
which the word of God has made so plain, that " the way- 
faring man though a fool, need not err," if he pay a sim- 
ple regard to both the laws of God and man in regard to 
marriage. My opinion is, that admitting the existence of 
all the defects in Mrs. Milton's temper and mental ca- 
pacity, and even her want of the knowledge of religion, 
that these were to her husband reasons why he should 
have exercised great " forbearance, and probably, in 
many cases, " forgiveness," but were no sufficient ground 
for his " putting away his wife and marrying another," 
which nothing but her having dishonoured his bed could 
have justified.* Will not the following language of the 

* Aubrey relates of Mrs. Milton, that she was brought vip and bred 
where there was a great deal of company and merriment, as dancing, &c. j 
and when she came to live with her husband, she found it solitary. No 
company came to her : and she often heard her nephews cry and be beaten. 
This life was irksome to her, and she went home to her parents. He sent 



86 MFE OF MILTOK. 

prophet Malachi apply to this case 1 — " Because the Lord 
liath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youths 
against whom thou hast dealt treacherously : yet is she thy 
companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did he not 
make one?'' — That is, as I understand it, does not the co- 
venant into which a man and woman enters at marriage 
make them one ? " One'' as to mutual duties ; " one" as 
to mutual rights. Now, so far as appears, Milton had 
no thought as to his being under any obligation to bear 
with the infirmities, and to overlook the provocations of 
his wife ! He does not say a word which indicates that 
his wife had a claim upon him — even admitting that she 
had given him great occasion for offence — for his affec 
tion and pardon. I fear Milton cannot, in regard to the 
spirit and treatment manifested towards her, (as she oiight 
to have been considered by him as his " companion, bone 
of his bone, and flesh of his flesh," and to have been loved 
by him " even as Christ loved the Church,") be defended 
from the charge of domestic tyranny. It is most humi- 
liating, that the man who so powerfully defended the re- 
ligious and civil rights and liberties of the nation, against 
B tyrannical monarch and oppressive prelaty, should have 
himself treated the wife of his bosom in a similar oppres- 
sive manner ! As regards domestic jars, I should never 
think the question applicable. Who gave the first offence '^ 
but rather. Which will be the first in showing a spirit of, 
and adopting means for, promoting reconciliation ? But 
did Milton act as a husband ought to do towards his 
obstinate wife ? Should he not have gone himself to her 
father's house, and entreated her ; rather than have sent 
his servant with his commands that she should instantly 
return home ; accompanied probably with a threat, if she 

for her home after some time. " As for wronging his bed, I never heard 
the least suspicion of that ; nor had he of that any jealousie."— Quoted 
by Todd, 



LIFE OP MILTON. 87 

did not return immediately he would not receive her at 
all ? I do not wish to justify what might perhaps have 
been ill-tempered and perverseness in Mrs. Milton ; but 
surely she did not act wrong in refusing to submit to the 
indignity of being treated rather as his servant than his 
companion — his other-self! Nor is it greatly to the cre- 
dit of Milton, that her obstinacy should have first yielded, 
by whatever means it was overcome : nor that he for a 
time seem.ed to be inexorable, even while this " weaker 
vessel was supplicating the forgiveness of her " own hus- 
band," with strong cryings and tears. — Well, I drop the 
curtain, rejoicing that he was not suffered, by the provi- 
dence of God, to go on madly in the way of his heart, and 
by marrying Miss Davis, to have consummated his brutal 
conduct towards his erring wife, and thus have put an 
irremediable brand of infamy upon his own character ; 
the which perhaps is still the fairest, even with this glar- 
ing defect, of any of which our country or the world has 
produced ! 

The fact is, Milton in this instance appears " to have 
been left by God to walk in his own counsels," in order 
that he might be tried, and know what was in his heart. 
Instead of trusting in God with all his heart, he leaned to 
his own understanding ; and thus furnished an affecting 
proof, that the best of men are but men at the best ! God 
prevents, by his providence, that any of his servants shall 
become idols of adoration : and will it be seen there are 
none of them but what at times, need the compassion 
even of their fellow. servants ! 

It is deeply affecting, that such a great man as 

Milton should have been "made the reproach of the 

foolish."* 

* As a proof of this remark, take the following extract from Familiar 
Letters, Vol. iv. By James Howell, Esq., 1655 : — 

" But that opinion of a poor shallow-brained puppy, who upon any cause 



88 WFE OF MILTON. 

I have been particular in extracting the reasons of 
Milton for this new and dangerous opinion, that the judi- 
cious reader may form his own judgment. I will now 
quote the concluding paragraph of his pamphlet, which 
he doubtless intended should concentrate the strength of 
all his arguments : — " Last of all," he says, " to those 
whose mind is still to maintain textual restriction, whereof 
the bare sound cannot consist sometimes with humanity, 
much less with charity, I would ever answer by putting 
them in remembrance of a command above all commands, 
which they seem to have forgotten, and who spake it ; in 
comparison whereof this [the law concerning marriage] 
which they exalt, is but a petty and subordinate precept. 
Let them go therefore with whom I am loth to couple 
them, yet they will needs run into the same blindness 
with the Pharisees ; let them go therefore and consider well 
what this lesson means, I will have mercy and not sacri- 

of disafFections, would have men to have a privilege to change their wives 
or repudiate thera, deserves to be hist at rather than confuted : for nothing 
can tend more to usher in all confusions throughout the world : therefore 
that wise-aker deserves of all others to wear a loting horn." p. 19, Letter 
vii. In the Index he thus refers to Milton's pamphlets on Divorce :— 
*' Of a noddy that writ a book of wifing !" 

To this m.ight be added the taunting reply of an anonymous author, to 
which the pious Caryl prefixed the following. 

Imprimatur, " An answer to a book, entitled, The Doctrine and Disci- 
pline of Divorce, or a Plea for Ladies and Gentlewomen, and all other mar- 
ried Women, against Divorce : wherein both sides are vindicated from all 
bondage of Canon Law, and other mistakes whatsoever : and the unsound 
principles of the Author are examined, and fully confuted by authority of 
Holy Scriptures, the laws of this land and sound reason. — London 1644. 

"To preserve the strength of the marriage bond, and the honour of that 
estate, against those sad breaches and dangerous abuses of it, which com- 
vion discontents (on this side adultery) are likely to make in unstaid minds, 
and men given to change, by taking in or grounding themselves upon the 
opinion answered, and with good reason confuted in this treatise, I have 
sanctioned the printing and publishing of it. — Joseph Caevl. 

"iVorem&er 14, 1644." 



LIS-E OF MILTON. ^9 

fice; for on that saying, all the law and prophets depend, 
much more the gospel, whose end and excellence is 
mercy and peace : or if they cannot learn that, how will 
they hear this, which yet I shall not doubt to leave with 
them as a conclusion ? " That God the Son hath put all 
^ther things under his own feet, hut his commandments hath 
he left all under the feet of charity, '^ 

It may be first inquired, in reply to this plausible state- 
ment, whether positive commands are to be superseded by 
moral considerations ; whether the cases were parallel of 
the Apostles on the Sabbath-day, rubbing out a few grains 
of wheat in their hands to check the cravings of hunger, 
or David eating the shew-bread when he was hungry, 
which was provided specially for the priests ; and Milton 
having, without assigning any such cause in the conduct 
of his wife as the Scriptures declare to be sufficient, re- 
solved to dissolve the marriage union ? — I trow not. His 
speaking of positive commands, especially of that which 
concerns marriage as "a petty and subordinate precept," 
is certainly to have undervalued the wisdom of God in 
that law ; and his stating that '* the Son of God hath left 
all his commandments under the feet of charity ;" as if 
positive commands were to be superseded by convenience, 
is a sentiment, to say the least of it, so lax and so capable 
of being abused, that there is no Antinomian licentiousness 
but may be sanctioned by it, under the name of Christian 
liberty. According to his reasoning, all other things, in 
regard to the welfare of the church and the rights of men, 
the Son of God hath authority to command and control ; 
but the regulations concerning the duties of marriage, he 
has left to what every one who calls himself his disciple 
may keep or not keep, observe or not observe, according 
as it might agree with what in regard to the husband, not 
respecting at all the rights of the wife, appears to the 

9 



90 riFE OP MILTON* 

party himself to be not duty, but charity. Was not this 
to say, in effect, " ergo, none but Pharisees will contend 
that I, John Milton, am not at liberty to repudiate my 
chaste wife, Mary Milton ; and to marry another, without 
in my case violating the law of Christ, or committing 
adultery." If, in this unhappy affair, this greatest of 
men was not left of God to be proved, as in the case of 
Hezekiah, "that he might learn what was in his heart," 
I am greatly mistaken in my view of his conduct. He 
probably learnt, by a comparison of his wife's three 
years' absence, with the domestic happiness he enjoyed 
after her return, that passion and not reason had guided 
his course ; and lamented, it may be hoped, that anger 
and resentment, and not forgiveness and forbearance, had 
so long biassed and governed his mind. I wish I could 
produce any express declaration from his subsequent 
writings, to prove that Milton, like " Hezekiah, humbled 
himself for the pride of his heart ;" for to this vice must 
be atributed the obstinacy and resentment, which inter- 
rupted his felicity. 

The fact is, that Milton had adopted a false principle 
of argument. He had argued upon the principle of expe- 
diency in reference to a point of revealed and positive law. 
And therefore, however specious his reasonings might 
have appeared to the inconsiderate, they could have had 
no weight with the judicious ; nor do his sentiments seem 
to have prevailed to any considerable extent.* 

* Mr. Todd says, in his life of Milton, p. 52. " Ephraim Pagitt, in his 
description of Hereticks and Sectaries of that period, mentions the sect of 
Divorcers, with him who wrote the Treatise on Divorce at their head." 
My copy of this most ridiculous book, written by " the late minister of St. 
Edmond's Lumbard Street," is "the sixth edition, whereunto is added the 
last year, 1661," &c. I cannot find the paragraph quoted by Mr. Todd, but 
there is the following notice, p. 100, under the head, ' Concerning Divorces :' 
" Of Independents, -Mr. Milton permits a man to put away his wife upon 



LIFE OF MILTON. 91 

Since writing the above remarks, I have met with the 
following sentiments of the venerable Bishop Hall, which 
I give in a note in confirmation of the correctness of the 
view which I have taken.* 

his mere pleasure, without any fault in her, but for any dislike, or dispa- 
rity of nature." 

*This work is entitled, "Resolutions and Decisions of divers practical 
cases of Conscience," printed in London, 1649. The bishop enquires, p. 
388, " Whether marriage lawfully made, may admit of any cause of di- 
vorce, save only for the violation of the marriage bed by fornication and adul- 
tery 7" He answers, ''I have heard too much of, and once saw, a licen- 
tious pamphlet, throwne abroad in these lawless times, in the defence and 
encouragement of divorces, (not to be sued out, that solemnity needed not,) 
but to be arbitrarily given by the disliking husband to his displeasing and 
unquiet wife — upon this ground principally, that marriage was instituted 
for the help and comfort of man ; when, therefore, the match proves svich, 
as that the wife doth but pull downe a side, and by her innate peevishness, 
and either sullen, or pettish and forward disposition, brings rather discom- 
fort to her husband, the end of marriage being hereby frustrate, why should 
it not, saithhe, be in the husband's power (after some unprevailing means 
of reclaimation be attempted) to procure his own peace and contentment in a 
fitter match '? 

^' Wo is me ! to what a pass is the world come, that a christian pretend- 
ing to reformation should dare to render so loose a project to the publique. I 
must seriously professe, when I first did cast my eye upon the front of the 
booke, 1 supposed some great wit meant to try his skill in the maintainance 
of this so wild and improbable a paradoxe ; but ere I could have run over 
some of those too well penned pages, I found the author was in earnest, and 
meant seriously to contribute this peece of good counsail in way of Refor- 
mation to the wise and sensible care of superiours. I cannot but blush for 
our age, wherein so bold a motion hath been, amongst others, admitted to 
the light : what will all the Christian churches through the world, to whose 
notice those lines shall come, thinke of our wofull degeneration in these de- 
plored times, that so uncouth a design should be set on foot among us 7" 

Quoting Gen, ii. 24, the good bishop says : " Loe, before ever there was 
father or mother, or sonne in the world, God hath appointed that the bond 
betwixt husband and wife shall be more strait and indissoluble than betwixt 
the parent or the child ; and can any man be so unreasonable as to defend 
it lawful], upon some unkind usages, or thwartness of disposition, for pa- 
rent to abandon and forsake his child, or the sonne to cast off his parent 7 
jnuch less therefore may it be thus betwixt an husband and wife : they tvo 



92 LIFE OF MILTON. 

An extract from a work written against the Baptists hj 
Dr. Daniel Featly, will show the manner in which the 
Presbyterians treated Milton, respecting his " Doctrine 
and Discipline of Divorce." Speaking of what he consi- 
dered the awful sentiments of the Baptists on the subject 
of the sole headship of Christ and his church ; that the 
civil magistrate had no authority in spiritual matters over 
the conscience ; and that the doctrine of punishing men 
for conscience sake, was the crying sin of the new Eng- 
lish churches, he adds, " Witness a treatise on Divorce, in 
which the bands of marriage are let loose to inordinate 
lusts, and putting away wives for many other causes? 
besides that which our Saviour only approveth ; namely^ 
in case of adultery.-' He then mentions several other 
pamphlets, besides this of Milton's, which had been re- 
cently published by the Baptists, to whih denomination 
he belonged.* 

are one flesh. Behold here an union of God's making : a man's matched 
with a shrew : The hone that is fallen to th y lot, that do thou knaw upon ? 
which would not be, if it were altogether free for him to leave that bone 
and take another." 

* The Rev. Dr. Daniel Featley was doubtless well acquainted with th© 
Baptists. The following account is amusing : — " On October 17, 1641, a 
famous dispute took place between Dr. Featley and four Baptists, some- 
where in Southwarkj at which were present Sir John Linthel and many 
others. The Doctor published his disputation in 1644 ; and tells us in hi» 
preface, that he coiild hardly dip his pen in any other liquor than that of 
the juice of gall; it is therefore no wonder it is so full of bitterness. He 
calls the Baptists, (1,) An idle and sottish sect. (2,) A lying and blasphe- 
mous sect. (3,) An impure and carnal sect. (4,) A bloody and cruel sect. (5,) 
A profane and sacrilegious sect. (6,) Describes the fearful judgments of 
God, inflicted upon the ring-leaders of that sect. This quarto work was 
entitled, ' The Dippers dipt ; or the Anabaptists ducked and plunged over 
head and ears, at a disputation in Southwark.' It is pompously dedicated 
' To the most noble lords, with the honourable knights, citizens ^nd burgess 
es, now assembled in parliament.' It is peculiarly gratifying that the Doc_ 
tor, with all his malignancy, was not able to exhibit,, much less substam- 



LIFE OP MILTON. 93 

The following beautiful sonnet, written just after these 
scenes of domestic strife had ended, will exhibit the calm- 
ed state of Milton's mind in regard to correct evangeli- 
cal sentiments, and the highest exercises of religious feel- 
ing :— 

'''on the religious memory of MRS. CATHARINE THOMSON, MT 
CHRISTIAN FRIEND, DECEASED 16 DECEMBER. 1646. 

^'' When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, 

Had ripen'd thy just soul to dwell with God, 

Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load 

Of death, call'd life ; which us from life doth sever. 
Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour, 

Staid not behind, nor in the grave were trod ; 

But, as faith pointed with her golden rod, 

Followed thee up to joy and love for ever. 
Love led them on, and Faith, who knew them best 

Thy handmaids, clad them o'er with purple beams 

And azure wings, that up they flew so dress'd. 
And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes 

Before the Judge , who thenceforth bid thee rest. 

And drink thy fill of pvire immortal streams,'* 

tiate, any charge against them, except what have been commonly but erro- 
neously alleged against the Baptists in Germany ; the disturbances atMun- 
ster being no more the effect of the principles of the Baptists, than the riots 
of London in 1789 were those of Protestants, or those in Birmingham of 
Episcopalians." 

'' The Doctor speaks very contemptuously of his opponents. He calls 
one of them a ' brewer's clerk :' no doubt this was Mr. Kiffin, who had been 
an apprentice to the famous republican, John Lilburn, of turbulent memory. 
He it was, too, it is probable, who is called 'Quartermini, the brewer's 
clerk,' in the pamphlet published in December, 1641, entitled ' New Preaeh- 
ers new.' " (History Eng. Bap. Vol. i. p. 164.) 

Before parting with Dr. Featley, who was a member of " the Assembly 
of Divines at Westminster," the author hopes he shall be pardoned forgiv- 
ing one extract from this most vituperating pamphlet. It is from " the 
Epistle to the Reader ;"— " This^re, [baptism] which in the reigns of Queen 
Elizabeth, and King James, and our gracious sovereign, [Charles I,] till 
now was covered m England under the ashes ; or if it broke out at any 
lime, by the care of the ecclesiastical and civil magistrates, was soon put 
9* 



94 LIFE OF MILTON". 

His biographer Toland informs us : " And now both his 
own father dying, and his wife's relations returning to 
their several habitations, he revived his academic institu- 
tion of some young gentlemen, with a design, perhaps, of 
putting in practice the model of education lately publish- 
ed by himself; yet this course was of no long continuance, 
for he was to have been, in 1647, made adjutant-general 
to Sir William Waller, but that the new modelling of 
the army soon following, and Sir William turning cat-in- 
pan, this design was frustrated." 

The same historian says : " A little after Fairfax and 
Cromwell had marched through the city with the whole 
army, to quell the insurrection of Brown and Massy, 
[who were] now grown discontented likewise with the par- 



out. But of late, since the unhappy distractions which our sins have brou^W 
upon usj the temporal sword being otherwise employed, and the spiritual 
fast locked up in the scabbard, this sect, among others, hath so far presumed 
upon the patience of the state, that it hath held weekly conventicles, re-bap- 
tized hundreds of men and v/omen together, in the twilight, in rivulets, and 
some arms of the Thames, and elsewhere, dippmg them over head and ears. 
It hath printed divers pamphlets in defence of their heresy; yea, and chal" 
lenged some of our preachers to dispvitation. Now, although my bent hath 
been always hitherto against the most dangerous enemies of our church and 
state, the Jesuits, to extinguish such balls of wild-fire, as they have cast into 
the bosom of our [Presbyterian] church ; yet seeing this strange fire kindled 
in the neighbouring parishes, and many Nadabs and Abihus offering it on 
God's altar, I thought it my duty to cast upon it the water of Siloam to ex- 
tinguish it.'' No one could have possibly guessed that the irritated Doc- 
tor's pamphlet was waier, much less pure water, had he not himself called 
it bo! In my copy, one of the sixth edition, there is an engraved frontis- 
piece, in which he is represented as dead, and laid out in his winding-sheet, 
and his epitaph dated 1645, with plenty of Greek and Latin ! Six editions 
of this quarto, of 258 pages, sold in six years ! ! So great and universal 
was the prejudice against the 'the Sect of Baptists' then, as long since, 
and still, every where spoken against! But as the devil is represented in 
the picture of the Reformers, puffing at a lighted candle, and saying, "We 
cannot blovr it out !" so Dr. Daniel Fcatley, with his "many waters," could 
not quench " this^re." 



LIFE OF MILTON. 95 

liament, [in December, 1648,] our hero changed his gar- 
ret for one more accommodated to his circumstances, 
where, in the midst of all the noise and confusion of arms, 
he led a quiet and private life, wholly delighted with the 
muses, and prosecuting his indefatigable search after use- 
ful and solid knowledge." The following lines refer to 
this period. 

WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITT> 

" Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in arms, 

Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, 

If deed of honour did thee ever please, 

Guard them, and him within protect from harms. 
He can requite thee ; for he knows the charms 

That call fame on such gentle acts as these. 

And he can spread thy name o'er land and seas, 

Whatever clime the suns bright circle warms. 
Lift not thy spear against the Muse's bower: 

The great Emathian conqueror bid spare 

The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower 
Went to the ground : Arid the repeated air 

Of sad Electra's poet had the power 

To save the Athenian walla from ruin bare." 

We are now arrived at the period when Milton was 
called upon to fill the honourable office of Latin secretary 
to the council of state, to which he had been called soon 
after the death of the king.* This public mark of respect 
from the republican government, for a man who had hith- 
erto been the object of affected scorn, a mere schoolmaster 
in the estimation, first of the prelates, and then of the 
NEW priests writ LARGE ! must havc been very galling, 
and exceedingly mortifying to their narrow and contrac 
ted souls. That he who, through their bigotry, had been 

•■ ♦ He now removed to a lodging in the house of one Thompson, at Charing 
Cross ; and afterwards to apartments provided for him in Scotland Yard : 
here his wife gave birth to a son, who died 16th of March, 1650. 



96 tiFE OF MILTON. 

cited to appear before the House of Lords, to give an a<i- 
count of his principles, which even admitting them in any 
respect to have been erroneous, were not a matter for the 
cognizance of the civil magistrate ; and respecting whom 
the redoubtable Dr. D. Featley had, in 1644, entreated 
" The most noble Lords," &c. &c. that he might be cut 
off as a pestilent Anabaptist ; should now have become a 
member of, or at least a constant attendant on, the chief 
council of the nation, and who, of course, must have had 
an influence to restrain the holy brotherhood from punish- 
ing those who, as regarded " working the work of the 
Lord," were better ministers than themselves ! One 
should conclude, they could not have helped thinking that 
they were the degraded Haman, and that Milton was the 
exalted Mordecai. " 

The following poem was probably produced by the at- 
tempt of the Presbyterians to get his book on Divorce 
burnt by the common hangman, and himself punished as 
an heretic in religion. 

" ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE, UNDER THE LONG PAP.-' 
LIAMENT. 

"Because you have thrown off your prelate lord, 

And with stiff vows renounced his liturgy, 

To seize the widow' d whore Plurality 

From them whose sin ye envied, notabhorr'd; 

Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword 

To force our consciences that Christ set free, 

And ride us with a classic hierarchy, 

Taught ye by mere A. S.* and Rutherford?! 

* Adam Stuart, a divine of the church of Scotland, and the author of 
several polemical tracts ; some portions of which commenced with A. S. 
only prefixed. 

t Samuel Rotherford, or Rutherford, one of the chief commissioners of 
the church of Scotland, and professor of divinity in the church of St. An- 
drew. He published a great variety of Calvinistic tracts. 



LIFE OF MILTON. 97 

Men, whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent, 

Would have been held in high esteem with Paul, 

Must now be nam'd und printed heretics, 

By shallow Edwards,* and Scotch what d'ye call ;t 

But we do hope to find out all your tricks. 

Your plots and packing, worse than those of Trent; 

That so the parliament 

May with their wholesome and preventive shears, 
Clip your phylacteries, though balk your ears, 

and succour our just fears 

When they shall read this clearly in your charge. 
New Presbyter is but old Priest whit large," 



* Thomas Edwards, minister, a! pamphleteering opponent of Milton; 
whose plan of independency he assailed with shallow invectives. 

t Perhaps Henderson, or Baillie, or Galaspie, Scotch divines : the former 
of whom appears as " a loving friend," in Rutherford's Redivivus ; and the 
latter was one of the ecclesiastical commissioncra at Westminster. 



98 LIFE OF MILTON. 



CHAPTER IV. 

1648—1653. 

I 

While the king had been a prisoner, and preparations 
were making for his trial, the Presbyterians of Sion Col- 
lege were very clamorous with the parliament that no 
harm might be done to his royal person, as such a pro- 
ceeding would be a violation of the solemn league and 
covenant, &c. Their complaints too, after the execution 
of the king, were very loud. 

The following is the statement of Neale, the historian 
of the Puritans, in reference to this period : — 

" The parliament tried several methods to reconcile 
the Presbyterians to the present administration. Per- 
sons were appointed to treat with them, and assure them 
of the protection of the government, and of the full en- 
joyment of their ecclesiastical preferments according to 
law ; when this would not do, an order was published, 
that ministers in their pulpits should not meddle with 
state affairs. After this the famous Mr. Milton was ap- 
pointed to write for the government, who rallied the seditious 
preachers with his satirical pen in a most severe manner /"* 

* Itwould seem from this statement that Milton was hired to write 
against the Presbyterians : this however, is not the fact, as the work re- 
ferred to was written before the death of the king in 1648. Another edition, 
with alterations, was pubhshed 1650. Neale had only seen the last edi- 
tioa I have copied extracts from both. 

The following statement from his Second Defence of the People of Eng- 
land, pubhshed in 1652, explains the above statement. — "Neither did I 
write any thing respecting it, (the royal jurisdiction,) till the king, fully 
proclaimed an enemy by the senate, and overcome in arms, was brought 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



99 



The circumstance of Milton having employed his pen 
against those whom he formerly united with in writing 
against the prelates, has subjected him to the charge of 
tergiversation. Let it be recollected, however, that 
Milton wrote against erroneous principles, and finding 
the Presbyterians enemies to a full toleration in religion, 
he opposed them on that account as much as he had be- 
fore opposed the prelates on the same account. 
~^ The work referred to, was entitled, " The Tenure of 
Kings and Magistrates, proving that it is lawful, and hath 
been so through all ages, for any who have the power, to call 
to account a Tyrant, or wicked King, and after due con- 
viction, to depose and put him to death, if the ordinary 
magistrate have neglected or denyed to do it. And that they 
who of late so much blame deposing, are the men that did it 
themselves.^' 

It thus commences : " If men within themselves would 

captive to his trial and condemned to suffer death. When, indeed, some of 
ihe Presbijterian leaders, lately the most inveterate] y hostile to Charles, 
but now irritated by the prevalence of the Independents in the nation and 
in the senate, and stung with resentment, not of the facts, but of their own 
want of power to commit it, exclaimed against the sentence of the Parlia- 
ment upon the king, and raised what commotion they could by daring to 
assert that the doctrine of the Protestant divines, and of all the reformed 
churches, was strong in reprobation of this severity to kings ; then, at length, 
I conceived it to be my duty publickly to oppose so much obvious and pal- 
pable falsehood. Neither did I then direct my arguments or persuasions 
personally against Charles, but by the testimony of many of the most em- 
inent divines, I proved what course of conduct niigxht lawfully be pursued 
towards tyrants in general ; and with the zeal almost of a preacher, I at- 
tacked the strange ignorance, or the wonderful impudence of those men, 
who had lately amused us with the promise of better things. This work 
was not published till after the death of the king, and was written rather 
to tranquilize the minds of men, than to discuss any part of the question 
respecting Charles, a question the decision of which belonged to the magis- 
trate, and not to me, and which had now received its final determination." 
It was published in Febrxiary 1648-9. The king had been beheaded on 
the 30th of January. 



loo LIFE OF MILTON. 

be governed by reason, and not generally give up theit 
understanding to a double tyrannie, of custom from with= 
out, and blind affection from within, they would 
discern better what it is to favour and uphold the tyrant 
of a nation. But being slaves within doores, no wonder 
that they strive so much to have the public state conform- 
ably governed to the inward vitious rule, by which they 
govern themselves." 

"As for mercy, if it be to a tyrant, under which name 
they themselves have cited him so oft in the hearing of 
God, of angels, and the holy church assembled, and there 
charged him with the spilling of more innocent blood by 
farre, than ever Nero did. Undoubtedly, the mercy 
which they pretend is the mercy of wicked men ; and 
their mercies, we read, are cruelties, hazarding the wel- 
fare of a whole nation, to have saved one whom they 
have so oft named Agag, and villifying the blood of many 
Jonathans that have saved Israel, insisting, with much 
niceness, of the unnecessarie clause in their covenant, 
wherein the fear of change, and the absurd contradiction 
of a flattering hostilitie hath hampered them, but not 
scrupling to give away for compliments to an implacable 
revenge the heads of many Christians more." 

" But who in particular is a tyrant,* cannot be deter- 
mined in general discourse, f otherwise than by supposition. 

* This particular charge, he says, "and the sufficient proof of it, must 
determine that, which I leave to magistrates, at least to the uprighter sort of 
them, and ofthe people, though in number less by many in whom faction 
hath prevailed above the law of nature and right reason, to judge aa they find 
cause." 

+ " Published now the second time with some additions, and many testi- 
monies also added of the best and learnedest among Protestant divines, as- 
serting the position of this book. The author, J. M. 

" London, printed by Matthew Simmons, next door to the Gjllion in Al- 
tlersgate Street, 1650." 



LIFE OF MILTON, 101 

But this I dare own, as part of my faith, that if such an 
one there be, by whose commission whole massacres have 
been committed on his faithfull subjects, his provinces of. 
feredto pawn or alienation as the hire of those whom he had 
solicited to come in and destroy whole cities and coun- 
tries ; be he King, or Tyrant, or Emperour, the sword of 
justice is above him, in whose hand soever is found suffi- 
cient power to avenge the effusion, and so great a deluge 
of innocent blood." 

He quotes the speecK of Trajan, the worthy emperor, 
to one whom he made general of the Praetorian forces, 
"Take this drawn sword," said he, "to use for me if I 
reign well, if not, to use against me !" 

The following is the description which he gives of the 
Presbyterians after they had obtained the chief power in 
church and state : — 

"As for the party called Presbyterian," he says, "of 
whom I believe many to be good and faithful Christians, 
though misled by some of turbulent spirit, I wish them 
earnestly and calmly notto fall off from their first principles, 
nor to affect rigor and superiority over men not under '\ 
them ; not to condemn unforcible things in religion espe-7 
cially, which, if not voluntary becomes a sin ; nor to 
assist the clamour and maltcious drifts of those whom 
they themselves have judged to be the worst of men, the 
obdurate enemies of God and his church; norto dart against 
the actions of their brethren, for want of other argument 
than those wrested laws and Scriptnres, thrown by pre- 
lates and malignants against their own sides, which, 
though they hurt not otherwise, are taken up by them to 
the condemnation of their own doings, give scandal to all 
men, and discover in themselves either extreme passion 
or apostacy. Let them not oppress their best friends 
and associates, who molest them not at all, infringe not 

10 



102 LIFE or MILTON. 

the least of their liberties, unless they call it their liberty 
to bind other men's consciences, but are still seeking to 
live at peace with them, and brotherly accord. Let them 
beware of an old and perfect enemy, who, though he 
hopes, by sowing discord, to make them his instruments, 
yet cannot forbear a minute the open throwing of his open 
revenge upon them, where they have served his pur- 
poses. Let them fear, therefore, if they be wise, rather 
what they have done already, than what remains to do ; 
and be warned in time, that they put no confidence in 
Princes, whom they have provoked ; lest they be added 
to the examples of those who have miserably tasted of 
that event." 

It is a pity that these Presbyterian magistrates and 
legislators had not felt, and listened to these cutting re- 
proofs and significant warnings. It might have saved 
them, and the religious part of the nation, that bitter 
draught, that cup of trembling, which in less than twelve 
years, they had put into their hands, and which, with all 
its dregs they were compelled to drink. 

This faithful Baptist thus proceeds : — " I have some- 
thing also to the Divines, though brief to what were need- 
ful : not to the disturbers of the civil affairs, being in 
hands better able, and to whom it more belongs to manage 
them ; but to study harder, and to attend the office of 
good pastors ; not performed by mounting twice into the 
chair, with a formal preachment, huddled up at the odd 
hours of a whole lazy week, but by incessant pains and 
watching; which if they well considered, how little 
leisure would they find, to be the most pragmatical sides- 
men of every popular tumult and sedition ! And all this 
while they are to learn what the true end and reason is, 
of the gospel which they teach, and what a world it difl?ers 
from the censorious lording over conscience. It would 



LIFE OP MILTON. 103 

be good also, they lived so as might persuade the people 
they hated covetousness, which, worse than heresy, is 
idolatry ; hated pluralities and all kind of simony ; left 
rambling from benefice to benefice, like ravening wolves, 
seeking where they may devour the biggest. Let them 
be sorry, that, being called to assemble about reforming 
the church, they fell to prajdng and soliciting the Parlia- 
ment, (though they had renounced the name of Priests,) 
for a new settlement of their tithes and oblations, and 
double-lined themselves with spiritual places of com- 
modity beyond the possible charge of their duty. Let 
them assemble a Consistory, with their Elders and Dea- 
cons, to the preserving of church discipline, each in his 
several charge ; and not a pack of clergymen, by them, 
selves, to belly-cheer in their presumptuous Sion,^ or to 
promote designs to abuse and gull the simple laity ; to 
stir up tumults, as the Prelates did before them, for the 
maintenance of their pride and avarice. On this occa- 
sion I must remark, that, by reason of the Presbyterians 
warmly uniting with others in the last Parliament, to pro- 
mote penal laws against the Socinians, I find few peopl©' 
will believe that those in England differ from their brethren 
in Scotland about persecutions, not that their own suffer- 
ings of late have made 'em more tender of the consciences 
of others, 

" This naturally leads men to think that they have not 
repented of their rigour in the civil wars ; and that, 
should the Dissenters once more get the secular sword 
into their hands, they would press uniformity of senti- 

♦The fifth Provincial Assembly of London mtt at Sion College, the 
beginning of May, 1649, the Reverend Mr. Jackson^ of St. Michael^ 
Wood Street, Moderator. A Committee was appointed to prepare mate- 
rials for proof of Divine Right of Presbyterian Church government. — 
TVealf- vol. ii. 13. 



104 LIFE OF MILTON. 

merits in religion, as far as any other Protestants and 
Papists ever yet have done. But what makes them most 
suspected of affecting dominion, is the prospect of a com- 
prehension, now on foot, whereof some men of figure 
among 'em seem to be so fond ; whereby the rest are 
easily deceived, and like to be left in the lurch, by enter- 
taining persons, who for several years past, made the 
Hierarchy and Liturgy such strange bugbears ; though 
if the church will please to become a blind mother to 
themselves, and show a little complaisance for their old 
friends, they are ready to pronounce her orders, her 
prayers, her ceremonies, to be very innocent and harm- 
less things; but mistaken formerly for pillars of Anti- 
christ, the symbols of idolatry, the dress of popery, the 
rags of superstition and protestant paint, to hide the de- 
formities of the old Babylonish whore. And after all, 
Avhatever ours may be, comprehension in all other places 
of the world has never been any thing else, but the com- 
bination of a few parties, to fortify themselves, and to 
oppress all others by their united force, or by an absolute 
exclusion from preferment and other advantages, to which, 
by nature and personal merit, they had an equal claim 
with the rest of their fellow-citizens. Tho' to be perse- 
cuted in their turn is the just judgment of God upon per- 
secutors, yet vengeance must be left to heaven ; and the 
wishes of all good men are, that the national church, 
being secured in her worship and emoluments, may not 
be allowed to force others to her communion ; and that 
all dissenters from it, being secured in their liberty of 
conscience, may not be permitted to meddle with the 
riches or power of the national church/' 

The first edition thus concludes : — " These things, if 
they observe and wait with patience, no doubt but all 
things will go well, without their importunities or excla* 



XIFE OP MILTON. 105 

mations ; and the printed letters which they send, sub- 
scribed with the ostentation of great characters, and lit- 
tle moment, would be more considerable than now they 
are. But if they be the ministers of mammon instead of 
Christ, and scandalize his church with the filthy love of 
gain ; aspiring also to sit, the closest and heaviest of all 
tyrants, upon the conscience : and fall notoriously into 
the same sins, whereof so lately and so loud they accused 
the prelates; as God rooted out those immediately before, 
so will he root out them, their imitators ; and to vindicate 
his own glory and religion, will uncover their hypocrisy 
to the open world, and visit upon their own heads, that 
curse the mercy, but more like atheists, they have mocked 
the vengeance of God. and the zeal of his people." 

These extracts will show the principles on which our 
noble patriot exposed the jure divino selfish, bigoted, 
sychophantic Presbyterians, who cared not, it should 
seem, so that the system, whatever it was, " worked 
well" for them, if all the other sects had perished by the 
sword of the magistrate, upon the ground of there " being 
no power but of God," and " those who resisted the power 
procured to themselves damnation." By putting the ar- 
gument on the right footing, " the sovereignty of the 
people," he proved, that it was the duty of the subject to 
obey, when the monarch governed by law, protecting his 
subjects ; and their duty to resist, when the king, regard- 
ing neither the law nor the common good, reigned for 
himself alone ! To bring the matter home to their breasts 
and to their bosoms, he gives the Sion College passive- 
obedience and non-resistance reverends this home thrust : 

*' But this, I doubt not to affirm, that the Presbyterians, 
who now so much condemn deposing, were the men them- 
selves who deposed the king, and cannot, with all their 
shifting and relapsing, wash off* the guiltiness from their 
10* 



106 LIFE OF MILTON. 

own hands. For they themselves, by these their late 
doings, have made it guiltiness, and turned their own un- 
warrantable actions into rebelUon." 

" jHe, who but erewhile in the pulpit was a cursed 
tyrant, an enemy to God and saints, laden with all the 
innocent blood in these kingdoms, and so to be fought 
against ; is now, though nothing penitent or altered from 
his first principles, a lawful magistrate, a Sovran Lord, 
the Lord's anointed, not to be touched, though by them- 
selves imprisoned, as if this only were obedience to pre- 
serve the meer useless bulk of his person, and that only 
in prison, not in the field, and to disobey his commands, 
deny him his dignity and office, every where to resist his 
power, but when they think it only surviving in their own 
fact." 

I copy the concluding paragraph of the second editioHj 
addressed chiefly to the Presbyterians : — " And indeed I 
find it generally the cleere and positive determination of 
them all, (not prelaticaly or of this late faction suhprelatu 
ccdy) who have written on this argument, that to do jus^ 
tice on a lawless king, is to a private man unlawful, to 
an inferior magistrate lawful : or if they were divided in 
opinion, yet greater than these have alleged, or of more 
certainty in the church, there can be more produced. 
If any man shall goe about by producing other testimonies 
to disable these, or by bringing these against themselves 
in other cited passages of their books, he will not only 
fail to make good that false and impudent assertion of 
those mutinous ministers, that deposing or punishing of a 
king or tyrant, is against the constant judgment of all Pro^ 
testant Divines, its being quite the contrary; but will 
prove rather thslt he intended not, that the judgment of 
Divines, if it be so various and inconstant to itself, is not 
considerable, or to be esteemed at all. Ere which be 



LIFE OF MILTON. 107 

yielded, as I hope it never will, these ignorant assertors 
in their own art will have proved themselves more and 
more, not to be Protestant Divines, whose constant judg- 
ment in this point they have so audaciously belayed, but 
rather to be a pack of hungry church- wolves, who in the 
steps of Simon Magus their father, following the hot scent 
of double livings and pluralities, advowsons, donations, 
inductions, augmentations, though uncalled to the flock 
of Christ, but by the mere suggestion of their Bellin, like 
those priests of Bel, whose pranks Daniel found out, have 
got possession, or rather seized upon the pulpit, as the 
strong hold and fortress of their sedition and rebellion 
against the civil magistrate, whose friendly and victorious 
hand having rescued them from Bishops, their insulting 
Lords, fed them plenteously both in public and in private, 
raised them to be high and rich, of poor and base ; only 
suffered not their covetousness and fierce ambition, which 
as the fruit that sent out their fellow locusts, hath been 
ever bottomless, and boundless, to interpose in all things, 
and over all persons, their impetuous ignorance and im- 
portunity." 

It will be seen that Milton, who had certainly contri- 
buted largely towards procuring for the Presbyterians 
their importance in the state, held their political principles 
in perfect abhorrence, whatever he might have thought 
of the piety, usefulness, and learning, of many of the 
ministers who held those popish, persecuting sentiments. 
The fact is, they had no correct views in regard to the 
inalienable right of every man to derive his religious 
views from the Bible, according to the prayerful exercise 
of his own judgment, and to act out his principles by en- 
deavouring, by every means, to propagate them.* 

*That the reader may judge of the spirit of popery " that prevailed in 
opposition to liberty of conscience/' I give the sentiments of the Enghsh 



108 LIFE OP MILTON. 

Soon after the death of the king, the Commons voted 
the House of Peers to be useless and dangerous ; and an 

Papists and the Protestantg in the reign of Elizabeth. They are founded 
on Rev. xvii. 6. " And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the 
saints, and of the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, and when 1 had seen 
her, 1 TTtarvelled with great adTniration." 

The Rhemish translators say, "It is plain that the woman means the 
whole corps of all the persecutors that have and shall shed so much blood 
of the just ; of the prophets, apostles, and other martyrs, from the begin- 
ning of the world unto the end. The Protestants foolislily expound it of 
Rome, for that there they put hereticks to death, and allow of their pun- 
ishment in other countries ; but their blood is not called the blood of saints, 
no more than the blood of thieves, man-killers, and other malefactors, for 
the shedding of which by the order of justice no commonwealth shall 
answer." 

To this Fulk, the Protestant commentator replies : " They whom you 
call heretickes, for the most part, and that are in any great number put to 
death at Rome, and by the tyranny of the Romish Inquisition, are the ti ue 
Christians and saints here spoken of, whose godly way you call heresy, as 
the persecuting Jews called it in St. Paul, Acts, xxiv. 14. Therefore, 
though we allow the punishment of heretickes both in our own country 
and in others, yet we abhorre the cruelty of antichrist and his church, 
which condemn true Christians, and murdereth them under colour of 
heretickes, himself and his false prophets being the greatest and most 
blasphemious heretickes that ever were." 

Now for the Presbyterians' sentiments upon this subject. 

In 1645, May 26, the lord mayor, court of aldermen, and common coun- 
cil, presented a remonstrance to parliament, praying them to take some 
strict and speedy course for suppressing all private and separate congre- 
gations, that all Anabaptists, Brownists, &c. &c. who conforxned not to 
the public discipline, and some effectual course be settled for punishing 
them. 

In 1650, a Piotestant assembly published a work entitled, " A Vindica- 
tion of the Presbyterian Government and Ministry, with an exhibition to 
all ministers, elders, and people, within the province of London. Published 
by the ministers and elders met together in a provincial assembly. Signed, 
George Walker, moderator; Arthur Jackson and Edmund Calamy, 
assessors ; Roger Drake and Eldad Blackwell, writers." 

This V70rk contains the following sentence : " Whatsoever doctrine is 
contrary to godliness, and opens a door to libertinism and profaneness, you 
must reject it as soul-poison, such is the doctrine of a universal toleration 
in religion." 



LIFE or MILTON. 109 

act was accordingly passed for abolishing it. It is said 
that Cromwell opposed this measure, but had not sufficient 
influence to prevent it. In order to establish a common- 
wealth firmly, and, as they doubtless thought, permanent- 
ly, they adopted the following resolution, and published 
this declaration : — " That it had been found by experience, 
that the office of king, in this nation, was unnecessary, 
burthensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety, and 
public interest of the nation ; and therefore it should be 
utterly abolished." A council of state was appointed, 
consisting of forty persons. That the I'eader may see 
by whom Milton was chosen to the office of Latin sec- 
retary, I give the names of the illustrious council for the 
first year in a note below.* 

" The Presbyterian ministers loudly declaimed, in their 
pulpits, against the manner in which the late king had 
been treated ; saying, that his usage had been very hard ; 
that his person was sacred and inviolable ; and that any 
violence which had been offered to him in the field, (and 
much more by the hands of the executioner,) was contrary 
to the doctrine of the reformed churches. To doubt their 
sincerity in all this, as some have done, who say, " they 
were not angry at the fact, but the faction,^^ would be 
illiberal ; but certainly they had been, up to the time that 
the king became a prisoner, as much his enemies, to say 

* President, JohuBradshaw_, Esq. ; Earls Denbigh, Mulgrave, Pembroke, 
and Salisbury ; Lords Grey, Fairfax, and Lord Grey of Groby ; EsquireS; 

John Lisle, Esq., Relies, Esq., Bulstrode Whitelocke, Esq.; Lieute 

nant-general Cromwell, Major-general Skippon ; — Sirs, Gilbert Pickering, 
William Massum, James Harrington, Henry Vane, jun., John Danvers, 
William Arinine, Henry Mildmay, William Constable; Esquires, Alex 
ander Popham, William Pureaay, Isaac Pennington, Rowland Wilson 
Edmund Budlow, William Herringham, Robert Wellop, Henry Martin, 
Anthony Stapely, John Huthinson, Valentine Walton, Thomas Scot, Dea 
nis Bond, L.ike RoLinson, John Jones, and Cornelius Holland. 



110 LIFE OP MILTON. 

the least, as any other description of persons in the nation. 
The fact, I believe is, that after the chief power in the 
commonwealth came into the hands of Cromwell, they 
lost their predominating influence, so that they could not 
set up their idol of uniformity, and, by fines and impri- 
sonment, force the consciences of the Independents, Bap- 
tists, Socinians, and various other sects and opinions, to 
bow down and worship it. It is certain, that had the 
principles even of such men as Calamy and Baxter pre- 
vailed, all those who had ventured to act contrary to their 
** Book of Discipline," would not only have been deprived 
of liberty, but of life ! 

After having given the Presbyterians their quietus in 
the second edition of the " Tenure of Kings," Milton, 
thinking he had leisure for the undertaking, applied him- 
self to writing the history of the English nation, intending 
to trace it, so far as possible, to the remotest period of 
antiquity, and to continue it to his own times. He had 
almost finished four books of this work, when, though he 
had neither courted nor expected any such preferment, 
he was taken, as has been mentioned, into the service of 
the new commonwealth, with, it is said, an annual salary 
of £200. Up to this period, he had lent gratuitously the 
assistance of his powerful pen, content with the esteem 
of good men, and the internal satisfaction of having per- 
formed his duty, while some, who had not so well de- 
served public rewards, had received some riches, and 
others some honours and distinctions in the government. 
Milton owed his distinction to his recent publication : 
this work, it is said, revived the fame of his other books. 
It looks from this, that his masterly productions in oppo- 
sition to the Prelates, and in support of the Presbyterian 
^' Smectymnuus,^' and his " Plea for unlicensed Printing," 
\lfkd not excited much of the pubhc attention, notwith- 



LIFE OP BIILTON. Ill 

Standing the unequalled strength of his arguments, and 
the hitherto unexampled beauty of his style. It was not, 
however, it is presumed, so much the excellency of his 
reasoning, and the gigantic powers which he had disco- 
vered in this work, as what Toland calls " his affection 
to the good old cause," that he was made secretary to the 
council of state for foreign affairs : he adds, " for the 
Republic scorned to acknowledge that sort of tribute to 
any prince in the world, which is now [1699] paid to the 
French king, of managing their affairs only in his lan- 
guage ; and took up the noble resolution, to which they 
firmly adhered, that they would neither write to others, 
nor receive their answers, except in the Latin tongue, as 
being common to them all, and the properest in itself to 
contain great things, as the subject of future pens." But 
this proceeding (confining all the government corres- 
pondence to the Latin language) could not be acceptable 
to those [governors] whose transactions were ashamed or 
afraid to see the light, and whose names will not be 
transmitted to posterity, unless for dexterously cheating 
their own people, and laying the springs of their tyranny 
or neglect in the dark, though their effects are sufficiently 
felt by their deluded subjects, and the injustice visibly 
exposed to all discerning eyes. " Who could," says 
Toland, " be found more fitted for such a post than Mil- 
ton, who quickly gained no less reputation to himself, 
than credit to the state that employed so able a person ? 
Of this the letters he wrote under that and the succeeding 
administrations, (for he served Oliver, Richard, and the 
Ru3ip,*) are abundant evidence, being, for different rea- 

♦ The reader need scarcely be informed that the persons thus uncourte- 
ously spoken of, are the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell : his modest 
successor and son, Richard ; and the Parliament called after the latter had 
resigned liis Protectorship the Rump, composed of those persons who had 
belonged to the " Lon^ Parliament." 



112 LIFE OF MILTON. 

sons, admired by critics and statesmen, as they [his let- 
ters] are certain and authentic materials for such as may 
hereafter write the history of those times." 

The government soon found a use for his Latin pen in 
another way ; for about this time, 1649, there was pub- 
lished a work entitled " Eikon Basilike, or the Portraiture 
of his sacred Majesty in his solitude and sufferings," and 
Milton soon after published by the authority of Parlia- 
ment, his " Eiclonocastes, or the image-breaker ;" — " the 
purport of the book attributed to the late king, (but writ- 
ten by a clergyman named Dr. Gordon,) being in the 
opinion of Milton, to catch the worthless approbation of 
an inconstant, irrational, and image doting rabble." In 
this work, (which it was afterwards discovered was an im- 
posture,) the king vindicates himself in distinct chapters 
against the charges made against him by the nation, of those 
acts of tyranny, which were the occasions of the civil 
war, or which had been committed against the people 
during its continuance. The effect of this work was so 
powerful upon the public mind, that Milton was com- 
manded to prepare an answer which should counteract its 
baneful influence to the disadvantage of the Government. 
He cheerfully undertook this task so agreeale to his prin- 
ciples, and so congenial to his feelings : to combat a king 
as he appears to have thought, was of all other employ- 
ments, that which called forth the powerful energies of 
his mighty mind, and brought into full exercise the high- 
tried feelings of his intrepid heart. 

He commences by saying, " Kings indeed have gained 
glorious titles from their flatterers or favourers, for writing 
against private men, as our Henry the Eighth was styled 
Defender of the Faith for having engaged Luther ; yet no 
man can expect much honour by writing against a king, 
as not usually meeting with that force of argument in such 



LIFE OF MILTON. 113 

courtly antagonists. Kings, though strong in legions are 
most commonly but weak at arguments, as they who have 
ever been accustomed from their cradle to use their will 
only as their right hand, their reason a.] wsljs as their left ; 
whence unexpectedly constrained to this kind of combat, 
they prove but weak and puny adversaries. Neverthe- 
less, for their sakes, who through custom, simplicity, or 
want of better teaching, have not more sacredly consider- 
ed kings than in the gaudy name of majesty, and admire 
them and their doings as if they breathed not the same 
breath with other mortal men, I shall make no scruple to 
take up this gauntlet, though a kings, in behalf of liberty 
and the commonwealth." 

" Having thus accepted the challenge," says Toland, 
** he fairly measures weapons, and answers all the allega- 
tions of that book beyond a possibility of a reply ;" bur 
every chapter of the Eikon Basilike being concluded with 
a devotional exercise, modelled into the form of a privates 
psalter, he once for all gives his opinion of those political 
prayers in the following caustic remarks : — "They who so 
much admire the Archbishop's Breviary, and many other 
[formularies] as good manuals and handmaids of devotion, 
the lip-work of every prelatical Liturgist, clapt this toge- 
ther, and quilted it out of scripture phrase with as much 
ease and as little aid of christian diligence or judgment, 
as belongs to the compiling of any ordinary and saleable 
piece of English divinity that the shops value. But he, 
who from such a kind of psalmistry, or any other verbal 
devotion, without the pledge and earnest of suitable deeds, 
can be persuaded of a zeal and true righteousness in the 
person has much yet to learn ; and knows not that the 
deepest policy of a tyrant has been ever to counterfeit re- 
ligion ; and Aristotle in his politics has mentioned that spe- 
cial craft among twelve other tyrannical sophisms. Nei- 

11 



114 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



ther want we examples. Andronicus Commenus the Bez- 
zantin Emperor, though a most cruel tyrant, is reported 
by Nicholas to have been a constant reader of St. Paul's 
Epistles : and by continual study had so incorporated the 
phrase and style of that Apostle into all his familiar letters, 
that the imitations seemed to vie with the original." 

Having mentioned our king Richard the Third, he dis- 
covers a piece of royal plagiarism, or, to be more chari- 
table, of his chaplain's priestcraft ; for one of the prayers 
composed by the late " martyr /" and styled " A prayer in 
the time of captivity," said to have been delivered by the 
king to Dr. Juxon, and twice printed among his works in 
folio, is plainly stolen and taken from the mouth of Pame- 
la, an imaginary lady, to a heathen deity, in Sir Philip 
Sidney's Arcadia. This and other circumstances of a 
similar kind, its composition, style, and management, 
could not impose upon Milton, who considered it as being 
rather the production of some idle clergyman, than the 
composition of a distressed Prince, either in perpetual 
hurry, at the head of a retreating army, or being removed 
from prison to prison during his captivity, till his death 
upon the scaffold. The following quotation is given by 
Milton to show it was compiled by some theologian, who 
did not hesitate in commenting without reverence upon 
the judgments of God. When the death of the Hothams 
was mentioned, who had opposed the king at Hull, it is 
said : — " That his [the father's] head was divided from the 
body, because his heart was divided from the king ; and 
that two heads were cut off in one family, for affronting 
the head of the commonwealth ; the eldest son being in- 
fected with the sin of the father against the father of his 
country." 

Many at the time suspected, from the internal evidence 
of the book itself, without any further light on the subject, 
that it was an imposture, and published for the purpose of 



LIFE OF MILTON, 115 

proving that the late king of the Royalist party had been 
a wiser man and better Christian than Cromwell, the head 
of the Republicans, notwithstanding the reputation which 
he had obtained in the nation for his intellect and piety.* 

* In the year 1686, this imposture was thus discovered. Mr. Miliing- 
ton had to sell the library of the late Lord Anglesey. Putting up an 
Eikon Basilike, notwithstanding it was in the reign of the supposed royal 
author's brother, there were but few bidders, and those very low in their 
biddings. Having thus leisure, while his hammer was suspended to turn 
over the leaves, he read, with evident surprise, the following memorandum 
in Lord Anglesey's hand-writing :— " King Charles the second and 
the Duke of York, did both (in the last sessions of Parliament, 1675, when 
I showed them, in the Lords' House, the written copy of this book, where- 
in are some corrections and alterations, written with the late king Charles 
the First's own hand,) assure me that this was none of the said king's com- 
piling, but made by Dr. Gauden, Bishop of Exeter; which I here insert 
for the undeceiving of others in this point, by attesting so much under my 
own hand. — Anglesey. 

This curious circumstance coming to light at the end of forty years, led 
to much conversation ; and several persons, who knew that Dr. Walker, an 
Essex Clergyman had descended from the Bishop of Exeter, Dr. Gauden, 
they made enquiries of him, as to whether he could throw any light upon 
the subject. This brought the whole matter before the public : it is too long 
and too uninteresting to copy the whole account, which may be easily obtain- 
ed ; but the following short extract proves the Jesuitry of even a Protestant 
bishop. Dr. Walker says that Di-. Gauden, acquainted him with the de- 
sign, showed him the heads of divers chapters of the book, and of some 
quite finished ; and on his [Dr. Walker's] expressing his dissatisfaction 
tnat the world shovild be so imposed upon, the Bishop bid him look at the 
title,—" The King's Portraiture;" "for" said the Bishop, "no man is 
supposed to draw his own picture !" Toland exclaims, " A very nice eva* 
sion !" I should call it a most infamous deception, which ought not to have 
been rewarded even with a bishoprick ! Dr. Walker says that the Duke of 
York, afterwards the conscientious, popish James the Second, knew that 
Dr. Gauden was the real author of the Eikon Basilike, and owned it had 
been of great service ! I can only find room, as my patience is exhausted in 
readmg of such detestable hypocrisy, for,— "4. A letter under Chancellor 
Hyde's [after Lord Clarendon, author of the Grand Rebellion !] own 
writing, dated the 13th of March, 1661, wherein he expresses his uneasiness 
under the Bishop's importunity, and excuses his inability yet to serve him ; 
but towards the conclusion it contains these remarkable words : ' TViepar- 



116 LIFE OF MILTON. 

Milton's pen was again employed in the year 164^, 
in reply to the " Representations of the Presbytery of Bel- 
fast in Ireland,'' These related to the king's death as 
being the breaking of the covenant : and besides, these 
" Priestlings" as Milton designates the members of this 
Presbytery, " were mortal enemies to the declaration 
granted by the Government to all sects of professing 
Christians ! calling their own Presbyterian government 
" the hedge and bulwark of Rehgion." In his observa- 
tions, Milton is very angry that the Duke of Ormond 
should have persuaded the Governor of Dublin to revolt 
from the Parliament, speaking contemptuously of a gen- 
eral Cromwell. " Who," says Milton " had done in a 
few years more eminent and remarkable deeds, whereon 
to found nobility in his house, though it were wanting, 
and perpetual honour to posterity, than Ohmond and all 

Ocular you mention has indeed been mentioned to me, as a secret ; / 
am' sorry lever knexo it ; and when it ceases to be a secret, it will please 
none but Mr. Milton !' " Need we wonder that the men of that genera- 
tion were the persecutors of the honest and conscientious nonconformists 7 
A secret ! So, my Lord Clarendon, you could keep such a secret as that, 
could you 1 I cannot believe your history after this, even had I done so 
before reading your note to Dr. Gauden. Toland has this ill-natured, 
but not probably unjust remark, " Had not Gauden been disappointed of 
Winchester, he had never pleaded his merit in this affair, nor would his 
widow have written her narrative." All this was printed in a paper enti- 
tled, " Truth brought to lighV 

There can be but little doubt, had James succeeded in establishing popery 
in England, that he would have rewarded Dr. Gauden's superlative me- 
rits by some distinguished rank in the Popish hierarchy ; if he had not 
prevailed with his infallible Holiness, the Pope, to have constituted the 
Bishop of Exeter the Master General of the Jesuits ! Was it at all 
wonderful that Charles the Second, who knew all this and connived at 
it should have been a laughing, lascivious infidel, or that he should have 
died a good Papist ? Is it at all wonderful that divine retribution should 
have driven Clarendon and James the Second out of the kingdom which 
they had thus suifered to " believe a lie ?'» 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



117 



his ancestors put together could shew from any Record 
of their Irish exploits, the evident scene of their glory." 
But the chief design of these remarks, so far as they 
applied to Ormond, was to expose the ''Articles of 
Peace," which Ormond had concluded with the Popish 
Irish Rebels of 1641 in the king's name, and by his au- 
thority ; pardoning them for the measure and rebelUon 
of English Protestants ; and acknowledging them to be 
"good and loyal subjects ;" discharging them from the 
oath of supremacy, framed principally on account of 
Papists : and by granting to those inhuman butchers such 
rights and immunities as were not enjoyed by the English 
conquerors : impowering too, the Irish Parliament to re- 
pel or suspend as they thought fit, what is called Poy- 
ning's act, the only security of their dependance upon 
England. 

" Having," says Todd, '' thus distinguished himself as 
the advocate of republicanism, the Members of the Eng- 
lish Council naturally appointed him to vindicate their 
cause against the attack of no mean opponent. King 
Charles the Second being now protected in Holland, had 
employed Salmasius, a learned Frenchman, professor of 
polite learning at Leyden, to write a defence of his late 
father, and of monarchy. " Salmasius," says Dr. John- 
son, " was a man of skill in languages, knowledge of 
antiquity, and sagacity of criticism, almost exceeding all 
hope of human attainment; and having by excessive 
praises been confirmed in great confidence of himself, 
though he probably had not much considered the princi- 
ples of society and the rights of government, undertook 
the employment without the distrust of his own qualifica- 
tions : and as his expedition in writing was wonderful, 
in 1649 published ' Defencio Regia.' It is certainly won- 

11* 



118 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



derful," adds Dr. J. " that Salmasius, the pensioner to a 
republic, should write a vindication of monarchy."* 

Milton's reply, which was also in Latin, with the title 
of Defencio Populi, was not published till the beginning 
of the year 1651. For this performance he was compli- 
mented at home by the visits or invitations of all the 
foreign ministers at London, as well as by the more sub- 
stantial approbation of his employers, who voted him, it 
is said, from the public purse, one thousand pounds :f 
and by encomiastic letters from the most celebrated 
scholars abroad ; and Christina, queen of Sweden, is 
said to have treated Salmasius the defender of monarchy 
with coldness, after she had read the defence of the people. 

It may be necessary briefly to state the occasion of 
this work having been written : Charles Stuart, after- 
wards king Charles the Second, of licentious memory, 
was living in a state of exile in Holland, and wishing 
some one to paint the execution of his father Charles the 
First in the blackest colours, to render the authors of that 
act most odious, and thereby probably to facilitate his 
coming to the throne of England as his hereditary free- 
hold : or if that end was not accomplished by such a pub- 

* Milton in his reply, solves this enigma — 60 jacobis e?. 

t The following statement of Milton, in his Second defence of the Peo- 
ple of England, makes this matter doubtful t 

" Nor do I complain of the very small part that hath come to me of re- 
ward and advantage for my service to the Commonwealth, and of the 
very great one of ignominy and reproach ; contented that I have been a 
zealous assertor of what was right for itself alone and gratis ; let others 
look to that, and be it known to you, that those conveniencies, and that 
wealth you reproach me with, I have never touched ; and that an account 
of which you chiefly accuse me of, I am not made a penny the richer. 

" I have thus from my private study, given my time and labour, some- 
times to the Chnrch, sometimes to the Commonwealth, though neither this 
nor tliat hath given me any thing in return but security. What I have 
done hath of itself given me a good conscience within, a good esteem 
amongst the good, and withall, this just and honest way of speaking." 



LIFE OP MILTON. 119 

lication, then that it might rouse the foreign Potentates to 
attempt by the power of their armies to promote his Res- 
toration. Having understood that Salmasius, a professor 
in the university of Leyden, a pensioner upon those free 
states, and employed in the service of the Dutch nation, 
was the fittest man for that purpose, he engaged him to 
undertake the work, on condition that when he had accom- 
phshed it, he should receive from the royal exile one 
hundred jacobusses ! ! In the year 1649 this bulky, in- 
congruous volume was printed in Holland, and on account 
of its being opposed to the common cause of liberty be- 
tween the Dutch and English, was ordered by the States 
to be suppressed. 

On its publication in England by the title of Defencio 
Regia, or a defence of Charles the First to Charles the 
Second, it was taken under consideration by the council 
of the nation, and Milton being present, was unanimous- 
ly called upon by every member of that noble band of 
patriots to write an answer to it. Within a very short 
time he produced his Defensio pro Populo Anglicano, or 
the Defence of the People of England : in which, to say 
nothing of his exposures of the ignorance and fury, and 
barbarous stile of his opponent, and of the pointed sar- 
casms which exposed Salmasius to the scorn and derision 
of the world, he completely defended the proceedings of 
the People of England, from the period of the commence- 
ment of the civil war, with such force of arguments and 
authoritative examples, that in the estimation of persons 
of all judgments, and all the countries of Europe, he ob- 
tained a most decisive triumph over his pedantic, syllo- 
gizing etymological opponent ; his readers being lost in 
astonishment at the display of his extensive reading, ancj 
unrivE^Ued judgment., 



120 LIFE OF MILTON. 

To afford some illustrations of the character of this 
work, I extract the concluding from the English Version 
by Mr. Washington of the Temple. " And now I think," 
(says the illustrious republican,) " that by God's assist- 
ance I have finished the work I undertook, namely, to 
defend the noble actions of my countrymen both at home 
and abroad, against the raging and envious madness of 
this distracted sophister ; and to assert the common rights 
of the people against the unjust domination of kings, not 
out of any hatred to Kings but Tyrants : nor have I pur- 
posely left unanswered any one argument alleged by my 
adversary, nor any example or authority quoted by him, 
that seemed to have any force in it, or the least colour of 
a proof; perhaps I have been guilty rather of the other 
extreme, of replying to some of his fooleries and trifles 
as if they were solid arguments, and thereby may seem 
to have attributed more to them than they deserved. — 
One thing yet remains to be done, which, perhaps, is the 
greatest concern of all, and that is, that you my country- 
men confute this adversary of yours by yourselves ; which 
I do not see any other means of your effecting, than by 
a constant endeavor to out-do all men's bad words by 
your own good deeds. When you laboured under more 
sorts of opposition than one, you betook yourselves to 
God for refuge, and he was graciously pleased to hear 
your most earnest prayers and desires. He gloriously 
delivered you, the first of nations, from the two greatest 
mischiefs of this life, and the most pernicious to virtue, 
tyranny and superstition ; he induced you, with that greats 
ness of soul, to be the first of mankind, who afler having 
conquered and captuated their own king, have not scru- 
pled to condemn him judicially, and according to that 
just sentence to put him to death. After performing such 
an illustrious action as this, you ought to do nothing that 



LIFE OF MILTON. 121 

is mean and little, not even to think, much less to do any 
thing but what is great ahd sublime. To attain which 
praise there is only this way, that as you have subdued 
your enemies in the field, so to make it appear that un- 
armed, and in full peace, you of all mankind are ablest 
to conquer ambition, avarice, the love of riches, and can 
best avoid those corruptions of prosperity which are apt 
to get the better of other nations ; to shew as great jus- 
tice, temperance, and moderation in preserving your lib- 
erty, as you have done courage in freeing yourselves from 
slavery. These are the only arguments and authorities 
by which you will be able to evince that you are not such 
persons as this fellow represents you, traitors, robbers, 
murderers, parricides, madmen ; that you did not put 
your king to death out of any ambitious design, or a desire 
of invading the rights of others, nor out of any seditious 
principles and sinister ends, not agitated by fury or mad- 
ness ; but that it was wholly out of love to your liberty, 
religion, justice, virtue, and inflamed with an affection for 
your country, that you punished a tyrant. But if it should 
happen otherwise, (which I pray God mercifully to forbid,) 
if as you have been valiant in war, you should grow de- 
bauched in peace, you that have had such visible demon- 
strations of the goodness of God to yourselves, and his 
wrath against your enemies, and that you should not have 
by so eminent and memorable an example before your 
eyes, to fear God and work righteousness, for my part, I 
shall easily grant and confess (for I cannot deny it) all 
the ills that liars and slanderers now think or speak of 
you to be true. And you will find in a little time that 
God^s displeasure against yoUj will be greater than it has 
bin against your adversaries, greater than his benign favour 
and 'paternal care, which you have experienced above every 
nation under heaven,'^ 



122 LIFE ON MILTON. 

This work has been blamed for the roughness of its 
style ; from the specimen given in the above quotation, 
it is more than probable numbers have disliked it for the 
puritanism of its sentiments. Oh ! that all public wri- 
ters, would imitate the bluntness of its honesty, the sim- 
plicity of its spirituality, and the evident aim of having 
nothing in view but the good of man and the glory of 
God. 

Milton has been censured also for the abuse with which 
he loaded his antagonist, (and it must be acknowledged 
there is of that article quantum sufficit,) but let it be recol- 
lected how basely this pitiful, hired foreigner, had abused 
the whole English nation, as if they were " all mere bar- 
barians and enthusiasts fiercer than their own mastiffs, and 
yet more silly than Athenian owls ;" and does it not fully 
justify him in having answered such a fool according to 
his folly, and having laid ybr^y stripes at least, not saving 
one, upon this contemptible fool's back, who knew noth- 
ing of the manner in which the people of England had 
acted towards an hypocritical, popery-led monarch, in 
defence of themselves and their liberties, but what had 
been told him by the miserable and drunken and beaten 
cavaliers, who were the noble attendants of the most no- 
ble Claries, in his outlawed, splendid style of dissipated 
exile in Holland ! 

I will give one specimen of Milton's polished and 
caustic sarcasm. Salmasiu^, in speaking of the "Coun- 
ty Court and hundred," had spelt the last word " hun- 
dreda." 

The reply is thus Englished : — 



" Who taught Salmasius, that Frerwh hirehng py, 
To aim at English and Hundreda cry 7 
The starving rascal, flusht with just a hundred 
Evglish jacohussus^ Hundreda blunder'd; 



LIFE OF MILTON. 123 

An outlawed king's last stock. A hundred more 
Would make him pimp for the Anti-christian whore; 
And in Rome's praise employ his poisoned breath, 
Who threatened once to stink the pope to death."* 

" This great display of intellectual power," says a mod- 
ern writer, " was received with the plaudits of the world ; 
and as the author's name was not in any wide celebrity 
out of his own country, the general surprise was nearly 
equal to the general admiration. Congratulations and 
acknowledgments of respect poured in upon him from 
every quarter ; and the scholars of Europe, actuated by 
a similar spirit with the spectators of the old Olympic 
games, threw garlands on the conqueror of Salmasius. 
On the publication of the * Defence of the people of Eng- 
land,' all the ambassadors in London, of whom, perhaps, 
the greater number were from crowned heads, discover, 
ed their sense of its merit by complimenting or visiting 
its author ; and he was gratified by letters replete with 
praise and with professions of esteem from foreigners, 
eminent for their talents and erudition."! 

An answer to this work of Milton appeared, written, 
it was said, by Bishop Bramhill, entitled. Clamor Regii 
Sanguinis ad Cwlum ; or, "the cry of the king's blood 
for vengeance to heaven against the parricides." In 
this work it is said, " What the most noble Salmasius 
has discretely written in defence of the right and honour 
of Charles the British monarch, murdered by wicked 
men, has borne but one impression, and saw the light 
with great difficulty ; with so much hatred does the world 
persecute truth in these latter times ; but of what the most 
execrable Milton has spitefully elaborated to ruin the 

* Salmasius had published a work entitled, " Apparatus contra Prima- 
tum Pap<E.'' 

t Simmon's Life of Milton, p. 374. 



124 LIFE OF MILTON. 

reputation of the deceased king, and to destroy the he- 
reditary succession of the crown, there are so many edi. 
tions, that I am uncertain to which of these I should refer 
my reader; so passionately fond are men grown now of 
lies and calumnies !" The true author of this work, it was 
afterwards understood, Peter Du Moulin the younger, 
a Prebendary of Canterbury. The publisher was Alex- 
ANDER MoRus a French minister, who prefixed a dedica- 
tion from himself as the printer to Charles the Second : 
he was on that account supposed to have been the writer, 
and Milton was commanded by the Council to write " a 
second defence for the people of England," which he 
soon after published with the title " Defencio 2. pro pop. 
Anglican.^ ^* 

From this work I extract the parts which contain a re- 
ply to reproaches which his mean antagonist had heaped 
on him for his blindness, and the pretended deformity of 
his person. " Let us," he says, " now come to the charges 
which he brings against me. Is there any thing in my 
life or my morals on which his censure may be fastened ? 
Certainly nothing. What then is his conduct ? That of 
which none but a savage and a barbarian could be guilty 
— he reproaches me with my form and with my blindness. 
In his page, I am 

' A monster, horrid, hideous, huge, and blind.' 

" I never, indeed, imagined there would be instituted any 
comparison between me and a cyclops. But my accuser 
immediately corrects himself : ' So far, however, is he 

* It appears tliat this Frenchman was ashamed to show himself as the 
writer of the Preface, being afraid of the polemical weapons of his oppo- 
nent. There is a letter in Thurloe's State papers^ written from the Hague, 
and dated 3rd of July, 1654, which throws light upon these subjects. The 
writer says, " They have had here two or three copies of Milton, against 



LIFE OF MILTON. 125 

from huge, that a more meagre, bloodless, diminutive ani- 
mal, can no where be seen.' Although it be idle for a 
man to speak of his own form, yet since, even in this par- 
ticular instance, I have cause of thankfulness to God, and 
the power of confuting the falsehoods of my adversary, I 
will not be silent upon the subject, lest any person should 
deem me as the credulous populace of Spain, who are 
induced by their priests to believe those whom they call 
heretics, to be a kind of rhinoceros, or a monster with a 
dog's head. By any man indeed, who has ever seen me, 
I have never, to the best of my knowledge, been consid- 
ered as deformed — whether as handsome or not forms a 
less object of my concern. My stature, I confess, not 
to be lofty ; but it approaches more to the middle height 
than to the low. If it were however, oven low, I should 
in this respect only be confounded with many who have 
eminently distinguished themselves in peace and in war ; 
and I know not why that human body should be called 
little, which is sufficiently large for all the purposes of 
human usefulness and perfection. When my age and 
habits of my life would permit, I accu&tomed myself to the 
daily exercise of the sword, and was not either so puny 
in my body, or so deficient in courage, as not to think 
myself, with that weapon which I generally wore, to be 
secure in the assault of any man, hand to hand, how 
superior soever he might be to me in muscular strength. 
The spirit and the power, which I then possessed, con- 
tinue unimpaired to the present day ; my eyes only are 

the famous professor Moms, who doth all he can to suppress the book. He 
saiih now that he is not the author of the preface to Clamor ; but we know 
very well the contrary. One Ulack, a printer, is re-printing MrLTON's 
book, with an apology for himself; but Ulack holds it for an honour to be 
reckoned on the side of Salmasius and Morus ; and besides, the profit he 
will make of it is the chiefest reason, Morus doth all he can to persuade 
him from printing it." 

12 



126 LIFE OF MILTON. 

not the same, and they are as unblemished in appearance, 
as lucid and free from spot, as those which are en- 
dued with the sharpest vision : in this instance alone, 
and much against my own inclination, am I a deceiver ? 
My face, than which, as he says, nothing is more blood- 
less, still retains at the age of forty, a colour the very re- 
verse of pale, and such as induces almost every one who 
sees me, to consider me as ten years younger than I am ; 
neither is my skin wrinkled, nor my body in any way 
shrunk. If I should misrepresent any of these circum- 
stances, my falsehood must instantly be detected by thou- 
sands of my own countrymen, and by many foreigners 
who are acquainted with my person, and to whose ridi- 
cule and contempt I should be exposed : it might then be 
fairly concluded, that he who, in an affair of no moment, 
could unnecessarily be guilty of a gross and wanton vio- 
lation of truth, could not be deserving of credit in any thing 
which he asserted. Thus much I have been compelled 
to speak of my own person ; of yours, though I have been 
informed that it is the most contemptible and the most 
strongly expressive of the dishonesty and malice which 
actuate it, I am as little disposed to speak as others would 
be to hear. 

" I wish that it were in my power, with the other 
attack, to refute the charge, which my unfeeling adver- 
sary brings against me, of blindness ; but alas ! it is not 
in my power, and I must consequently submit to it. It is 
not, however, miserable to be blind : he only is miserable 
who cannot acquiesce in his blindness with fortitude. 
And why should I repent at a calamity, which every 
man's mind ought to be so prepared and disciplined, as 
to be able, on the contingency of its happening, to un- 
dergo with patience : a calamity to which every man by 
the condition of his nature is liable : and which I know 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



127 



to have been the lot of some of the greatest and the best 
of my species. Among those on whom it has fallen, I 
might reckon some of the remotest bards of remote anti- 
quity, whose want of sight the Gods are said to have 
compensated with extraordinary and far more valuable 
endowments, and whose virtues were so venerated that 
men would rather arraign the Gods themselves of injustice, 
than draw from the blindness of these admirable mortals 
an argument of their guilt. What is handed down to us 
respecting the augur Tiresias is very commonly known. 
Of Phineus, Apolonius in his Argonautics thus sings — 

* Careless of Jove, in conscious virtue bold, 
His daring lips Heav'ns sacred mind unfold. 
The God hence gave him years without decay, 
But robb'd his eye-balls of the pleasing day.' 

" As for what I wrote at any time, (since the Royalists 
think I now suffer on that account, and triumph over me,) 
I call God to witness that I did not write any thing but 
what I then thought, and am still persuaded to be, right 
and true and acceptable to God ; nor led by any sort of 
ambition, profit, or vain glory ; but have done all from a 
sense of duty and honour, or out of piety to my country, 
and for the liberty of Church and State. On the contrary, 
when the task of answering the king's defence was en- 
joined me by public authority, being both in an ill state 
of health, and the sight of one eye almost gone already, 
the Physicians openly predicting the loss of both if I 
undertook this labour, yet nothing terrified by their pre- 
monition, I did not long balance whether my duty should 
be preferred to my eyes." 

The following beautiful Sonnet will show the happy 
state of his mind under this painful affliction, the principles 
of the gospel evidently '' filled him with joy and peace in 
believing :" so that he " abounded in hope by the power 
ofthe Holy Ghost." 



128 LIFE OF MILTON. 



ON HIS BLINDNESS. 

*' When I consider how my life is spent 

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide. 

And that one talent which is death to hide, 

Lodged vvi h me useless, thoug-h my soul more bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present 

My true account, lest he, returning chide, 

'Doth God exact day labour, light denied 'P 

I fondly ask : but patience to prevent 

That mvirmur, soon replies, ' God doth not need 

Either man's works, or his own gift ; who best 

Bears his mild yoke they serve him best : his state 

Is kingly : thousands at hi& bidding speed, 

And post o'er land and ocean without rest y 

They also serve who only stand and wait.' " 

In a letter expressive of his entire resignation to the 
will of God, under this painful affliction, addressed to his 
friend, Leonard Philarus of Athens, dated Westminster^ 
September 28th, 1654, he gives this further account of 
his blindness. 

'•^ That I might not seem," be says, " to neglect any 
means, perhaps of divine suggestion, for my relief, I will 
hasten to comply with your request : — 

" It is now about ten years, I think, since I first per- 
ceived my sight beginning to grow weak and dim, and at 
the same time my spleen and other visura heavy and 
flatulent. When I sate down to read as usual in the 
morning, my eyes gave me considerable pain, and refused 
their office till fortified by moderate exercise of body. 
If I looked at a candle, it appeared surrounded by an iris. 
In a little time, a darkness covering the left side of the 
left eye, which was partially clouded some years before 
the other, interrupted the view of all things in that direc- 
tion. Objects also in front seemed to dwindle in size 
whenever I closed my right eye. This eye too for three 
years gradually failing, a few months previous, while I 



LIFE OF MILTON. 129 

was perfectly stationary, every thing seemed to swim 
backward and forward : and now thick vapours appear to 
settle upon my forehead and temples, which weigh down 
my eyes with an oppressive sense of drowsiness, espe- 
cially in the interval between the dinner and evening ; so 
as frequently to remind me of Phineus, the Salmydissim, 
in the Argonautics. 

" In dai-kness swam his brain, and where he stood, 
The stedfast earth seemed ro'JUng hke a flood. 
Nerveless his tongue, and, every power oppressed, 
He sunk, and languished into torpid rest." 

" I ought not to omit mentioning that, before I wholly 
lost my sight, as soon as I lay down in bed, and turned 
upon either side, brilliant flashes of light used to issue 
from my closed eyes ; and afterwards upon the gradual 
failure of any power of vision, colours proportionably dim 
and faint, seemed to rush out with a degree of vehemence 
and a kind of inward noise. These have now faded into 
uniform blackness, such as ensues on the extinction of a 
candle ; or blackness varied only and intermingled with 
a dunnish grey. The constant darkness, however, in 
which I live day and night, inclines more to a whitish 
than a blackish tinge ; and the eye in turning itself round 
admits, as through a narrow chink, a very small portion 
of light. But this, though it may offer a similar glance 
of hope to the physician, does not prevent me from making 
up my mind to my case, as evidently beyond the reach 
of cure : and I often reflect, that as many days of dark- 
ness, according to the wise man, (Eccle. xi. 8.) are al- 
lotted to us all, mine, which by the singular favour of the 
Deity, are divided between leisure and study, and are 
recruited by the conversation and intercourse of my 
friends, are more agreeable than those deadly shades of 
12* 



130 LIFE OF MILTON. 

which Solomon is speaking. But if, as it is written, 
" Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word 
which proceedeth out of the mouth of God," (Matt. iv. 4.) 
why should not each of us likewise acquiesce in the re- 
flection, that he derives not the benefit of his sight from 
his eyes alone, but from the guidance and providence of 
the same Supreme Being? Whilst he looks out and 
provides for me as he does, and leads me about as it 
were with his hand through the paths of life, I willingly 
surrender my own faculty of vision in conformity to his 
good pleasure : and with a heart as strong and as stedfast 
as if I were a Lynceus, I bid you, my Philarus, farewell !" 
It may perhaps be thought by some, that Milton need 
not have noticed such contemptible charges. But what 
despicable pigmies must those have been, who compelled 
him to talk as vam and worthless fools do, who have no- 
thing in view but selfish ends, by the vanity of their self- 
commendations : so Paul, who was cast in a similar 
mould, (and to whom I consider Milton stands next of 
uninspired men,) said to the ungrateful Corinthians : — 
*' / say again, let no man think me a fool ; if otherwise, yet 
as a fool receive me, that I may boast myself a little. That 
which I spealc, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were 
foolishly in this confidence of boasting.^'' — 2 Cor. xi. 16, 17. 
The following beautiful Sonnet will put a suitable con- 
clusion to this painful subject of a good man having pro- 
bably " been made the song of the drunkard," on account 
of the affliction with which it had pleased God to visit 
him : — 

TO CYRIAC SKINNER. 

^' Cyriac, this three years' day these eyes, though clear. 
To outward view, of blemish or of spot, 
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot ; 
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 



LIFE OF MILTON. 131 

Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, 
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not 
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 

Of heart or hope ; but still bear up and steer 

Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask 1 

The conscience. Friend, to have lost them overplied 
In liberty's defence, my noble task. 

Of which all Europe rings from side to side. 

This thought might lead me throwgh the world's vain mask 
Content, though blind, had I no better guide." 

Alexander Mokus took the field again, and published 
what he called " Fides PiiUica" and Milton replied, in 
a work entitled " Defencio pro,''^ or a defence of himself, 
and so completely baffled his opponent, that he prudently 
quitted the field, and Milton was proclaimed, by general 
consent, the People's Champion and Conqueror : an 
honour this, greater than what many monarchs have ob- 
tained even from their sycophants and parasites — more 
valuable, more permanent ! 

It appears that Milton was now advanced from his 
office to the Council, to be Latin Secretary to that most 
extraordinary man, Oliver Cromwell : for whose statue 
I venture to bespeak a niche among the illustrious dead 
in Westminster Abbey : not doubting, from recent events, 
but the time will come, when the governors of the nation 
will be so sensible of the obligations of Britain to that 
illustrious ruler and his noble compatriots, as, maugre the 
mean power of ignorance and prejudice, will decree him 
a monumental inscription in the sepulchres of our kings. 



132 LIFE OF MILTON. 

CHAPTER V. 

1653—1660. 

Oliver Cromwell was now declared the chief magis- 
trate, under the title, not of king, which he was strongly 
solicited to accept, but of Lord Protector. He was in 
stalled into this high office, with great solemnity and mag 
nificence, on the 16th day of December, 1654; and Mil 
TON, all republican as he was, fell in with that arrange 
ment, and acknowledged that title, because " he confi 
dently hoped," says Toland, " that Cromwell would em 
ploy his power and trust to extinguish the numerous fac 
tions in the State, and to settle such a perfect form o^-nfree 
government, wherein no single person should enjoy any 
power above or beside the laws !" There can be no 
doubt but Milton's chief reason was his knowledge of the 
Protector's principles in regard to liberty of conscience 
in religion ; that he would establish equal rights in reli- 
gion, as well as in politics ; and as he had delivered the 
nation from civil tyranny, so he would protect all persons 
professing regard for, and being subject to the laws, what- 
ever their religious sentiments might be, from the oppress- 
ion of the dominant religious sect : and compel the Pres- 
byterians now they were in power, to grant that protec- 
tion to other sects, which they themselves had pleaded 
for, when writhing as Puritans under the lash of the Pre- 
lates. 

The following expressive Sonnet will give the just cha- 
racter of the Lord Protector : at least, what were the 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



133 



sentiments of the honest Milton respecting him, after he 
had gained the Sovereign power : — 

" Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a croud 

Not of war only, but distractions rude, 

Guided by faith and matchless fortitude. 

To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughs, 

And fought God's battles, and his work pursued, 

While Darxoent streams, with blood of Scots imbrued, 

And Dusbar field resounds thy praises loud. 

And Worcester's laureate wreath. Yet much remains 

To conquer still ; Peace has her victories 

No less than those of war. New fees arise. 

Threatening to bind our souls in secular chains : 

Help us to save free conscience from the paw 

Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw !"* 



Some extracts have been made from Milton's " Se- 
cond Defence of the People of England," in the last chap- 
ter ; and intimations given of the high estimation in which 
that most extraordinary man, Oliver Cromwell, was held 
by him. The following is taken from the same noble 
work ; which, though an highly wrought eulogy on the 
Protector, and that too, let it be remembered, after all 
those actions had been committed, such as dissolving the 
parliament, usurping the supreme power, &;c. which has 
exposed his name to so much obloquy. 

He thus expresses his approbation of the general's 
conduct, in putting an end to the power of the parliament. 
" When you saw them studious only of delay, and per- 
ceived each one more attentive to private advantage than 

* The Protector was an enemy to persecution. Among the capital arti- 
cles^on which his government was founded, was this : " That such as pro- 
fess faith in God by Jesus Christ, though they difer in judgment 
from the doctrine, worship, or discipline, publicly held forth, shall not 
be restrained from, but shall be protected in, the profession and exer- 
cise of their religion ; and that all laws, statutes, and ordinances^ 
against such liberty shall be esteemed null and void." 



134 . LIFE OF MILTON. 

public welfare ; when you found the nation lamenting 
over their deluded hopes, which were successively baffled 
and disappointed by the power of a few, you at length did 
that, which they had been frequently warned and instruct- 
ed to do, and put an end to their sittings." 

Speaking of Cromwell's religious character he says : 
*'Such was the temper and discipline of his mind, moulded 
not merely to military subordination, but to the precepts 
of Christianity, sanctity, and sobriety, that all the good 
and valiant were irresistibly drawn to his camp, not only 
as to the best school of martial science, but also of piety 
and religion ; and those who joined it were necessarily 
rendered such by his example." 

Milton composed this work immediately after Crom- 
well's elevation to the office of Protector. It was pub- 
lished in May, 1654, and is entirely free from flattery or 
sycophancy. He enumerates the great events which 
had happened since the command of the army had been 
confided to Cromwell as captain-general — as the recovery 
of Ireland, the subjugation of Scotland ; the crowning 
victory at Worcester; the dismission of the Long Parlia- 
ment ; the meeting and subsequent abdication of " The 
Little, or Barebone's Parliament;" and, to crown the 
whole, the magnanimous rejection of the title of king. 
With this topic the following extract commences ; and let 
any one from it convict the writer of any tergiversation, 
or accommodation of his principles. 

" Proceed then, Cromwell, and exhibit, under every 
circumstance, the same loftiness of mind : for it well be- 
comes you, and is consistent with your greatness. The 
deliverer, as you are, of your country — the author, the 
guardian, and preserver of her liberty — you can assume 
no additional character more important or more august ; 
since not only the actions of our kings, but the fabled ex- 



LIFE OF MILTON. 135 

ploits of our heroes are overcome by your achievements. 
Reflect then frequently, (how dear ahke the trust, and the 
parent from whom you received it,) that to your hands 
your country has commended and confided her freedom ; 
that, what she lately expected from her choicest repre- 
sentations, she now hopes exclusively from you. Oh, 
reverence this high confidence, this hope of your coun- 
try, relying exclusively upon yourself: reverence the 
countenances and the wounds of those brave men, who 
have so nobly struggled for liberty under your auspices, 
as well as the names of those who have fallen in the con- 
flict. Reverence also the opinion and the discourse of 
foreign communities ; their lofty anticipations with res- 
pect to our freedom, so valiantly obtained — to our repub- 
lic, so gloriously established, of which the speedy ex- 
tinction would involve us in the deepest and most unex- 
ampled infamy. Reverence, finally, yourself: and suffer 
not that liberty, for the attainment of which you have en- 
countered so many perils, and endured so many hardships, 
to sustain any violation from your own hands, or any 
from those of others. Without our freedom, in fact, you 
cannot yourself be free : for it is justly ordained by na- 
ture, that he who invades the liberty of others shall, in 
the very outset, lose his own, and be the first to feel that 
servitude which he has induced. But if the very patron, 
the tutelary deity, as it were, of freedom ; if the man, 
most eminent for justice, and sanctity, and general excel- 
lence, should assail that liberty which he has asserted, 
the issue must necessarily be pernicious, if not fatal, not 
only to the aggressor, but to the entire system and inter- 
ests of piety herself. Honour and virtue would appear 
to be empty names; the credit and character of rehgion 
would decline and perish under a wound more deep than 
any which, since the first transgresion, had been inflict- 



136 LIFE OF MILTON. 

ed upon the race of man. You have engaged in a most 
arduous undertaking, which will search you to the quick ; 
which will bring to the severest test your spirit, your 
energy, your stability ; which will ascertain whether you 
are really actuated by that living piety, and honour, and 
equity, and moderation, which seem, with the favour of 
God, to have raised you to your present high dignity. 
To rule with your counsels three mighty realms, in the 
place of their erroneous institutions ; to introduce a 
sounder system of doctrine and of discipline, to pervade 
their remotest provinces with unremitting attention and 
anxiety, vigilance and foresight ; to decline no labours, 
to yield to no blandishments of pleasure, to spurn the pa- 
geantries of wealth and of power. These are difficulties, 
in comparison of which those of war are the mere levities 
of play ; these will sift and winnow you ; these demand 
a man sustained by the Divine assistance, tutored and in- 
structed almost by a personal communication with his 
God. These, and more than these, you often, as I doubt 
not, revolve in your mind, and make the subjects of your 
deepest meditations, greatly solicitous how most happily 
they may be achieved, and your country's freedom be 
strengthened and secured ; and these objects you cannot, 
in my judgment, otherwise effect than by admitting, as 
you do, to an intimate share in your counsels, those men 
who have already participated your toils and your dan- 
gers ; men of the utmost moderation, integrity and valour ; 
not rendered savage or austere by the sight of so much 
bloodshed, and of so many forms of death ; but inclined 
to justice, to the reverence of the Deity, to a sympathy 
with human suffering, and animated for the preservation 
of liberty with a zeal strengthened by the hazards, which 
for its own sake they have encountered ; men not raked 
together from the dregs of our own or of a foreign popu- 



LIFE OF MILTON. 137 

lace — ^not a band of mercenary adventurers ; but men 
chiefly of a superior condition ; in extraction noble or 
respectable ; with respect to property, considerable or 
competent, or in some instances deriving a stronger claim 
to our regard, even from their poverty itself; men not 
concerned by the love ot plunder ; but, in times of ex- 
treme difficulty, amidst circumstances generally doubt- 
ful, and often almost desperate, excited to vindicate their 
country from oppression ; and prompt, not only in the 
safety of the senate-house, to wage a war of words, but 
to join battle with the enemy in the field. If we will 
then renounce the idleness of never-ending and fallacious 
expectation, I see not whom, if not in them, and such as 
these, we can place reliance and trust. Of their fideli- 
TY we have the surest and most indisputable proof in the 
readiness which they have discovered even to die, if it 
had been their lot, in the cause of their country : of their 
PIETY, in the devotion with which, having repeatedly and 
successfully implored the protection of Heaven, they uni- 
formly ascribed the glory to Him from whom they had 
solicited the victory ; or of their justice in not exempting 
even the king from trial and execution ; or of their mo- 
deration, in our own experience, and in the certainty 
that, if their own violence should disturb the peace which 
they have established, they would themselves be the first 
to feel the resulting mischiefs, themselves would receive 
the first wounds in their own bodies, while they were 
again doomed to struggle for all their fortunes and ho- 
nours now happily secured ; of their fortitude, lastly, in 
that none ever received their liberty with more bravery 
or effect, to give us the assurance that none will watch 
over it with more solicitous attention and care." 

This most interesting work concludes with the follow- 
ing striking paragraphs : — 

13 



138 LIFE OF MILTON. 

" For myself, whatever may be the final result, such 
efforts as in my own judgment were the most likely 
to be beneficial to the commonwealth, I have made with- 
out reluctance, though not, as I trust, without effect : I 
have wielded my weapons for liberty, not only in our do- 
mestic scene, but on a far more extensive theatre ; that 
the justice and principle of our extraordinary actions, 
explained and vindicated, both at home and abroad, and 
confirmed in the general approbation of the good, might 
be unquestionably established, as well for the honour of 
my compatriots as for the precedents to posterity. That 
the conclusion prove not unworthy of such a commence- 
ment, be it my countrymen's to provide. It has been 
mine to deliver a testimony, I had almost said to erect a 
monument, which will not soon decay, to deeds of great- 
ness and of glory almost transcending human panegyrick ; 
and if I have accomplished nothing farther, I have assu- 
redly discharged the whole of my engagement. As the 
bard, however, who is denominated Epic, if he confine his 
work a little within certain canons of composition, propo- 
ses to himself, for a subject of poetical embellishment, not 
the whole life of his hero, but some single action, (such as 
the wrath of Achilles, the return of Ulysses, or the arrival 
in Italy of ^neas,) and takes no notice of the rest of his 
conduct ; so will it suffice either to form my vindication, 
or satisfy my duty, that I have recorded in heroic nar- 
rative one only of my fellow-citizen's achievements. The 
rest I omit : for who can declare all the great actions of 
a whole people ? If, after such valiant exploits, you fall 
into gross delinquency, and perpetrate anything unworthy 
of yourself, posterity will not fail to discuss and to pro- 
nounce sentence on the disgraceful deed. The founda- 
tion they will allow indeed to have been firmly laid, and 
the first (nay, more than the first) parts of the superstruc- 



LIFE OF MILTON. 139 

ture to have been extended with success ; but with an- 
guish they will regret that there were none found to car- 
ry it forward to completion ; that such an enterprise and 
such virtues were not crowned by perseverance ; that a 
rich harvest of glory and abundant materials for heroic 
achievement were prepared ; but that men were wanting 
for the illustrious opportunity, while there wanted not a 
man to instruct, to urge, to stimulate to action, — a man 
who would call fame as well upon the acts as the actors, 
and could spread their celebrity and their names over 
land and seas to the admiration of all future ages." 

This work, with an accompanying letter, was present- 
ed to the Protector by Andrew Marvell, Esq. at Eton. 
His letter informing the Author of the manner in which 
it was received, is dated Eton, June 2nd. 1654, and is 
directed, " For my honoured friend, John Milton. Esq. 
Secretary for the Foreign Affairs, at his house in Petty 
France, Westminster."* 

In this house he had lost his first wife, with whom, so 
far as appears, he had from the period of their reconci- 
liation, lived in comfort. Here also, in 1665, he lost his 
second, Catharine, the daughter of Captain Woodcock of 
Hackney, who is designated " a zealous sectarist." This 
lady, of whom Milton appears to have been passionately 
fond, died in childbed with a daughter, about a year after 
their marriage. The sorrows of his heart on this melan- 
choly event, were vented in the following most touching 
Sonnet : — 

ON .HIS DECEASED WIFE. 

" Methoughtl saw my late espoused saint 
Brought to me like Alcestis, from the grave, 
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, 
Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint ; 

* Simmons's Life of Milton, note, p. 456. 



140 LIFE OF MILTOX. 

Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint 

Purification in the old law did save, 

And such, aa yet once more I trust to have 

Full sight of her in heaven without restraint, 

Came vested all in white, pure as her mind! 

Her face was veiled ; yet to my fancied sight, 

Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined 

So clear, as in no face with more delight. 

But Oh ! as to embrace me she inclined, 

I waked ; she fled ; and day brought back my night." 

In the year 1656, he dedicated to the newly called 
parliament, "A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical 
Causes ; showing that it is not lawful for any Power on 
earth to compel in matters of Religion." 

It thus begins ; — 

" To the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, 
and the Dominions thereof; — I have prepared, supreme 
Council, against the expected time of your sitting, this 
Treatise, which, though to all Christian magistrates equal- 
ly belonging, and therefore to have been written in the 
common language of Christendom, natural duty and af- 
fection hath confined and dedicated first to my own na- 
tion ; and in a season wherein the timely reading thereof, 
to the easier accomplishment of your great work, may 
save you much labour and interruption : of two parts usu- 
ally proposed. Civil and Ecclesiastical, recommending 
Civil only to your proper care. Ecclesiastical to them 
only from whom it takes its name and nature. 

" In regard that your power is but for a time, and hav- 
ing in yourselves a Christian liberty of your own, which 
at one time or other may be oppressed, thereof truly sen- 
sible, it will concern you so long as you are in power, so 
to regard other men's consciences, as you would your 
own should be regarded in the power of others, and to 
consider that any law against conscience, is alike in 



LIFE OF MILTON. 141 

force against any conscience, and so may one way or 
other justly redound upon yourselves One advantage I 
make no doubt of, that I shall write to many eminent per- 
sons of your number, already perfect and resolved in 
this important article of Christianity." 

He explains what he intended by liberty of conscience : 
" I here mean by conscience or religion, that full persua- 
sion whereby we are assured that our belief and practice, 
as far as we are able to apprehend and probably make 
appear, is according to the will of God and his Holy 
Spirit within us, which we ought to follow much rather 
than any law of man, as not only his word every where 
bids us, but the very dictate of reason tells us. Acts iv. 19, 
WJiether it be right in the sight of God, to hearken unto you 
more than unto God, judge ye. That for the belief or 
practice of religion according to this conscientious per- 
suasion, no man ought to be punished or molested by any 
outward force upon earth whatsoever, I distrust not, 
through God's implored assistance, to make plain, by 
these following arguments. To sum up all in brief: if 
we must believe as the magistrate appoints, why not 
rather as the church ? If not of either without convince- 
ment, how can force be lawful ? But some are ready to 
cry out, ' What shall then be done with blasphemy V 
Them I would first exhort not thus to terrify and pose the 
people with a Greek word ; but to teach them better what 
it is, being a most usual and common word in that Ian- 
guage, to signify any slander, any malicious or evil- 
speaking, whether against God or man, or any thing to 
good belonging. Blasphemy, or evil speaking against 
God maliciously, is far from conscience in religion, accord- 
ing to that of Mark, ix. 39, There is no7ie can do a power- 
ful work in my name, and can lightly speak evil of me. If 
this suffice not, I refer them to that well-deliberated Act, 

13* 



142 LIFE OF MILTON. 

August 9th, 1650,* where the Parliament defines bias- 
phemy against God, as far as it is a crime belonging to 
civil jurisdiction, plenius ac melius Chrysippo est Cranton ; 
in plain English, more warily, more judiciously, more or- 
thodoxally, than twice their number of divines have done 
in many a prolix volume ; although, in all likelihood, they 
whose whole study and profession these things are, should 
be most intelligent and authentic therein, as they are for 
the most part, yet neither they nor these unerring always, 
or infallible.. 

" No Protestant, therefore, of what sect soever, follow- 
ing Scripture only, which is the common sect in which 
they all agree, and the granted rule of every man's con- 
science to himself, ought, by the common doctrine of 
Protestants, to be forced or molested for religion. But 
as for popery and idolatry, why they also may not hence 
plead for idolatry, I have much less to say. This religion, 
the more considered, the less can be acknowledged a reli- 
gion ; beingindeed more properlynamed a Catholic heresy 
against the Scriptures, supported mainly by a civil, and, 
except in Rome, by a foreign power ; justly therefore to 
be suspected, and not tolerated by a magistrate of another 
country. Besides, of an implicit faith which they profess, 
the conscience also becomes implicit, and so by voluntary 
servitude to man's law, forfeits her Christian liberty. Who 
then can plead for such a conscience, as being implicitly 
enthralled to man, instead of God, almost becomes no con- 
science, as the will, not free, becomes no will. Neverthe- 
less, if they ought not to be tolerated, it is for just reason 
of state more than of religion ; which they who force, 



* With the following title — " An act against several Atheistical, Blasphe- 
TOOus, and execrable Opinions, derogatory to the honour of God, and de- 
structive to Human Society." 



LIFE OF MILTON. 143 

though professing to be Protestants, deserve as little to be 
tolerated themselves, being no less guilty of popery in the 
most popish point. On these four reasons, the Scriptures, 
Testimonies, Examples, and Experiences, as on a firm 
square, this truth, the right of Christian and evangelick 
liberty, will stand immoveable against all those pretended 
consequences of license and confusion, which, for the 
most part, men most hcentious and confused themselves, 
or such as whose severity would be wiser than Divine wis- 
dom, are ever aptest to object against the ways of God ; as 
if God without them, when he gave us this liberty, knew 
not of the worst which these men in their arrogance pre- 
tend will follow, yet knowing all the worst, he gave us 
this liberty as by him judged best. 

" What evangelical religion is, is told in two words. 
Faith and Charity, or Belief and Practice ; and that both 
these flow either the one from the understanding, the 
other from the will, or both jointly from both ; once in- 
deed naturally free, but now only as they are regenerate, 
and wrought on by Divine grace, is in part evident to 
common sense and principles unquestioned ; the rest by 
Scripture." 

He thus concludes : " The brevity here, not exceed- 
ing a small manuel, will not therefore, I suppose, be 
thought the less considerable, unless with them perhaps 
who think that great books only can determine great 
matters. I rather chose the common rule, not to make 
much ado where less may serve, which in controversies, 
and those especially of religion, would make them less 
tedious, and by consequence read often by many more 
and with more benefit." 

In 1658, he dedicated to the Parliament a treatise en- 
titled, " Consideratio7is touching the likeliest way to remove 
Hirelings out of the Church,^^ In this he employs the 



144 LIFE OF MILTON. 

same plain and bold style by which his former works are 
distinguished. The design of this work was to stir up the 
parliament to abolish the system of tithe, and, instead of 
it, to leave the support of the established clergy to the 
voluntary contributions of their respective flocks. The 
parliament had voted, in 1649, that tithes should he taken 
away, as soon as another maintenance for the clergy 
should be agreed upon. Several petitions came out of 
the country, praying the House to bring the affair to an 
issue. One member advised that the tithes all over the 
kingdom might be collected into a treasury, and that the 
ministers might be paid their salaries out of it ; while 
others, looking upon tithes as unlawful, would have had 
all the livings valued, and the parish to engage to pay 
the minister ; this subject was now revived, and the 
Presbyterians became seriously alarmed lest they should 
be deprived of their livings ; which they undertook to 
prove were jure divino, and that they had a clear scriptu- 
ral right to the "tenths of all."* 

He thus plainly addresses the senate of the nation : — 
" Owing to your protection, supreme senate, this liberty 

* Neal's Hist, of Puritans, vol. iv. p. 508. 

The celebrated Richard Baxter, in the preface to his ''Reformed 
Pastor," published in April, 1656, says, " Hath it not been put to the 
vote in an assenibly that some call a Parliament of England, whether 
the whole frame of the established ministry and its leg-al maintainance 
should be taken down 1 and were we not put to plead our title to that 
maintainance, as if we had fallen into the hands of Turks, that had 
thirsted for our subversion, as resolved enemies to the Christian cause I 
And who knows not how many of these men are yet alive 1 and how 
high the same spirit yet is, and busily contriving the accomplishment 
of the same design 7 Shall we think that they have ceased from their 
enterprise, because they are working more subtilly in the dark 7" 

Mr. Baxter says, in another work : " It was put to the vote whether 
all the parish ministers should not be put down through the nation, 
that the best of them might be set up in another way ; and that this 
proposal was carried in the negative by two voices only." 



LIFE OF MILTON. 145 

of writing which I have used these eighteen years, on 
all occasions, to assert the just rights and freedom of 
Church and State, and so far approved, as to have been 
trusted with the representment and defence of your actions 
to all Christendom against an enemy of no mean repute, 
to whom should I address what I still publish on the same 
argument, but to you, whose magnanimous counsels first 
opened and unbound the age from a double bondage un- 
der prelatical and legal tyranny ; above our own hopes 
heartening us to look up at best like men and Christians, 
wherein from father to son we were bred up and taught ; 
and thereby deserving of these nations, if they be not 
barbarously ingrateful, to be acknowledged, next under 
God, the authors and best patrons of religious and civil 
liberty that ever these islands brought forth." 

He speaks of'* the just petition of thousands in regard 
to religion," and says, " Whether ye will listen to them, 
or whether ye will satisfy, which you never can, the 
covetous pretences and demands of insatiable hirelings, 
whose disaffection you well know both to yourselves and 
your resolutions." He then proves that ministers under 
the gospel dispensation have no claim to be supported by 
tithes, unless, " if any man be so minded as to give them 
of his own the tenths or twentieths." — " Under the law, 
God gave them tithes ; under the gospel, having left all 
things in his church to charity or Christian freedom, he 
hath given them only what is freely given them." 

To the objection, that without a compulsory mainte- 
nance of ministers from tithes, there would be many vil- 
lages not provided with religious instruction, he remarks, 
that competent persons belonging to large congregations 
in their respective neighbourhoods might be sent to in- 
struct them. " To these I might add other helps, which 
we enjoy now, to make more easie the attainment of 



146 LIFE OF MILTON. 

Christian religion by the meanest : the entire Scripture 
translated into English, with plenty of notes ; and some- 
where or other, I trust, may be found some wholesome 
body of divinity, as they call it, without school terms and 
metaphysical notions, which have obscured rather than 
explained our religion, and made it seem difficult without 
cause. Thus taught once for all, and thus now and then 
visited and confirmed, in the most destitute and poorest 
places of the land, under the government of their own 
elders, performing all ministerial offices among them, 
they may be trusted to meet and edifie one another, whe- 
ther in church or chappel ; or to save them the trudging 
of many miles thither, neerer home, though in a house or 
barn. For notwithstanding the gaudy superstition of 
some devoted still ignorantly to temples, we may be well 
assured, that he who disdained not to be laid in a manger, 
disdains not to be preached in a barn ; and that by such 
meetings as these, being indeed most apostolical and 
primitive, they will in a short time advance more in 
Christian knowledge and reformation of life, than by the 
many years' preaching of such an incumbent, I may say 
such an incubus, ofttimes as will be meanly hired to abide 
long in those places." 

He recommends that the revenues left for superstitious 
purposes, but intended by the donors for good and best 
uses, should be employed to erect school-houses all over 
the land, and to provide competent libraries to be con- 
nected with such schools, " where languages and arts 
may be taught free together. So all the land," he adds, 
" would soon be better civilized, and those who are taught 
freely at the public cost, might have their education given 
them on this condition, that therewith content, they should 
not gad for preferment out of their own country, but con- 
tinue there, thankful for what they received freely, be- 



LIFE OF MILTON. 147 

Stowing it as freely upon their country, without soaring 
above the meanes wherein they are born. But how they 
shall live when they are thus bred and dismiss'd, will be 
still the sluggish objection. To which is answered, that 
those public foundations may be so instituted, as the youth 
therein may be at once brought up to a competence of 
learning and an honest trade ; and the hours of teaching 
so ordered, as their study may be no hindrance to their 
labor or other calUng. This was the breeding of St. 
Paul, though born of no mean parents, a free citizen of 
the Roman empire : so little did his trade debase him, 
that it rather enabled him to use that magnanimity of 
preaching the gospel through Asia and Europe at his 
own charges : thus those preachers among the Walden- 
ses, the ancient stock of our reformation, without these 
helps which I speak of, brought up themselves in trades, 
and especially in physic and surgery, as well as in the 
study of Scripture, (which is the only true theology,) that 
they might be no burden to the church, and by the exam- 
ple of Christ, might cure both soul and body, through 
industry joining that to their ministry, which he joined to 
his by gift of the Spirit. Thus relates Peter Gillies, in 
the History of the Waldenses in Piemont. But our min- 
isters think scorn to use a trade, and count it the reproach 
of this age, that tradesmen preach the gospel. It were 
to be wished they were all tradesmen, they would not 
then so many of them, for want of another trade, make a 
trade of their preaching ; and yet they clamour that 
tradesmen preach, and yet they preach when they them- 
selves are the worst tradesmen of all." 

After alluding to his " Treatise of Civil Power,'' <SfC, 
he says : " It remains now to speak of hire, the other 
evil so mischievous in religion. — This I am sensible will 
be a work unpleasing to some : but what truth is not 



148 LIFE OF MILTON. 

hateful to some or other, as this in likelihood will be to 
none but Hirelings. And if there be among them who 
hold it their duty to speak impartial truth, as the work of 
their ministry, though not performed without money ; let 
them not envy others who think the same no less their 
duty by the general office of Christianity, to speak truth 
as in all reason may be thought more impartially and 
consuspectingly without money. 

"It remains to consider in what manner God hath 
ordained that recompense be given to ministers of the 
gospel ; and by all Scripture it will appear that he hath 
given it them not by civil law and freehold as they claim, 
but by the benevolence and free gratitude of such as 
receive them, (Luke x. 7, 8,) eating and drinking such 
things as they give you. If they receive you, eat such 
things as are set before you. (Matthew x. 7, 8.) ' As 
ye go, preach, saying. The Kingdom of God is at hand,' 
&c. 'Freely ye have received, freely give.' If God 
hath ordained ministers to preach freely, whether they 
receive recompense or no, then certainly he hath forbid 
both them to compel it, and others to compel it for them." 
Speaking of the parish ministers, he says : " They 
pretend that their education, either at school or the uni- 
versity, has been very chargeable, and therefore ought 
to be repaid after by a fruitful maintainance, whereas it 
is well known that the better half of them (and ofttimes 
poor and pitiful boys, of no merit or promising hopes that 
might entitle them to the public provision, but their pov. 
erty and the unjust favour of friends,) have had the most 
of their breeding, both of school and university, by scho- 
larships, exhibitions, and fellowships, at the public cost, 
which might engage them the rather to give freely as 
they freely received. Or if they have mist of these helps 
at the latter place, their studies there, (if they ever well 



LIFE OF MILTON. 149 

began them,) and undertaken, though furnished with 
little else but ignorance, boldness, and ambition, if with 
no worse vices, a chaplainship in some gentleman's house, 
to the frequent imbasing of his sons with illiterate and 
narrow principles. Or if they have lived there upon their 
own, who knows not that seven years' charge of living 
there, to them who fly not from the government of their 
parents to the license of the university, but come seriously 
to study, is no more than may be well defrayed and reim- 
burst by one year's revenue of an ordinary good benefice. 
If they had then means of breeding from their parents, 
'tis likely they have more now ; and if they have it must 
be mechanic and disingenuous in them to bring a Bill of 
Charges for the learning of those liberal arts and sciences 
which they have learnt, (if they indeed learnt them, as 
they seldom have,) to their own benefit and accomplish- 
ment. So long ago out of date is that old true saying — 
If any man desire the office of a bishoprick, he desireth a 
good work; for now commonly he that desires to be a 
minister, looks not at the work, but at the wages, and by 
that lure of Loubel, may be tolled from parish to parish 
all the town over. 

" I have thus at large examined the usual pretences of 
hirelings, covered over most commonly with the cause of 
learning, and the universities ; as if with such divines 
learning stood and fell, wherein, for the most part, their 
pittance is so small ; and to speak freely, it were much 
better there were not one divine in the university, nor no 
school divinity known, the idle sophistry of monks, the 
canker of religion : and that they who intended to be mi- 
nisters, were trained up in the church only by the scrip- 
tures, and in the original languages thereof, at school, 
without fetching the compass of other arts and jsciences 
more than they can well learn a secondary leisure and at 

14 



159 LIFE OF MILTON. 

home. Neither speak T this in contempt of learning, or 
the ministry, but hating the common cheats of both ; ha- 
ting that they who have preached out bishops, prelates, 
and canonists, should, in what seems their own ends, re- 
tain their false opinions, their pharisaical living, their ava- 
rice, and closely their ambition, their pluralities, their 
non-residences, their odious fees, and use their legal and 
popish arguments for tithes ; that Independents should 
take that name, and seek to be dependents on the magis- 
trate for their maintenance ; which two things, Indepen- 
detice and State-hire in religion, can never consist long or 
certainly together. For magistrates at one time or other, 
not like those at present, our patrons of Christian liberty, 
will pay none but such whom, by their committees of 
examination, they find conformable to their interest and 
opinions ; and hirelings will soon frame themselves to that 
interest, and those opinions which they see best pleasing 
to their paymasters : and to seem right themselves will 
force others as to the truth. But most of all they are to 
be reviled and shamed, who cry out with the distinct 
voice of notorious hirelings, that if you settle not our 
maintenance by laws, farewell the gospel ; than which 
nothing can be uttered more false, more ignominious, 
and, I may say, more blasphemous against our Saviour, 
who hath promised without this condition, both his Holy 
Spirit and his own presence, with his church to the world's 
end." 

He thus concludes : " Of which hireling crew, together 
with all the mischiefs, dissensions, troubles, wars, merely 
of their own kindling, Christendom might soon rid herself, 
and be happy, if Christians would but know their own 
dignity, their liberty, their adoption, and let it not be won- 
dered, if I say, their spiritual priesthood, whereby they 
have all equally access to any ministerial functions when- 



LIFE OF MILTON. 151 

ever called by their own abilities and the church, though 
they never came near commencements or university. 
But while protestants, to avoid the due labours of under- 
standing their own religion, are content to lodge it in 
their books, or in the breast of a clergyman, and to take 
it thence by scraps and mammocks as he dispenses it in 
his Sunday Dole ; they will be always learning and never 
knowing ; always infants ; always either his vassals as lay 
papists are to their priests ; or at odds with him, as re- 
formed principles give them some light to be not wholly 
conformable ; whence infinite disturbances in the state, 
as they do, must needs follow. Thus much I had to say ; 
and I suppose what may be enough to them who are not 
avariciously bent otherwise, touching the likeliest means 
to remove hirelings out of the church ; than which nothing 
can more conduce to truth, to peace, and all happiness, 
both in church and state. If I be not heard nor believed, 
the event will bear me witness to have spoken truth ; and 
I in the mean while have borne me witness, not out of 
season to the church and my country," 

The death of the mighty Oliver Cromwell, on Septem- 
ber 3rd, 165S, prevented the accomplishment of this and 
other noble plans for the benefit of the nation. Sad con- 
fusions followed, but Miltoiv still proved himself alive to 
its best interests, and struggled till the last moment to 
prevent the destruction of the Commonwealth, and the re- 
turn of the nation to Monarchy and Episcopacy. The 
successor to the Protectorate, Richard Cromwell, was not 
able to guide the helm at this stormy period, and soon re- 
signed his troublesome office. 

It is said, that after the loss of his second wife, in 1655, 
he had absented himself from court, except when abso- 
lutely called thither by his duties as Latin Secretary. 
He says of himself, in a letter, dated December 18th, 



152 LIFE OF MILTON. 

1657, to a young friend who had written to him to solicit 
the office of Secretary to our ambassador in Holland : — 
" I am grieved that it is not in my power to serve you on 
this point, inasmuch as I have very few familiarities with 
the gratiosi of the court, who keep myself almost wholly 
at home, and am wiUing to do so." 

The year after the death of Cromwell, he thus speaks 
in a letter to Henry Oldenburgh, the tutor to Lord Rane- 
lagh, who had formerly been the pupil of Milton. " Far 
be it from me to think, as you seem to desire, of writing 
the history of our late convulsions ; which indeed are 
more worthy to be forgotten than to be commemorated : 
nor does my country now stand in need of a person to re- 
cord her intestine commotions, but of one qualified to bring 
them to an auspicious conclusion."* Upon this extract 
some writers have concluded he spoke of the whole period 
of the Commonwealth, whereas, it is evident tome, he al- 
ludes only to the convulsions which ensued after the death 
of Cromwell. 

Milton addressed the following letter to a friend, bear- 
ing date October 20, 1659, which relates " to the Rup- 
tures of the Commonwealth," from which may be learned 
what were the nature of his republican principles, and 
probably what were his suspicions of General Monk. 

" Sir, 

" Upon the sad and serious discourse which we 
fell into last night, concerning these ruptures in the Com- 
monwealth, scarce yet in her infancy, which cannot be 
without some inward flaw in her bowels ; I began to con- 
sider more intensely thereon than I have ever bin wont, re- 
signingmyself tothe wisdom and care of those who hold the 
government ; and not finding that either God or the pub- 

♦ Lives of Edward and John Philips. 



LIFE OF MILTON. 153 

lick required more from me, than my prayers for them 
that govern. And since you have not only stirred up my 
thoughts, by acquainting me with the state of affairs, 
more inwardly than I knew before ; but also have desired 
me to set down my opinion thereof, trusting to your in- 
jenuity, I will give you freely my apprehensions, both of 
our present evils, and what expedients, if God in mercy 
regard us, may remove them. 

" I will begin by telling you how I was overjoyed, when 
I heard that the army, under the working of God's Holy 
Spirit, as I thought, and still hope will have been so far 
wrought to Christian humility and self-denial, as to con- 
fess in public their backsliding from the good old cause, 
and to show the priests of their repentance, in the right- 
eousness of restoring the old famous [Long] Parlianient, 
which they had without just authority dissolved. I call 
it the famous Parliament, though not the harmless, since 
none well-affected but will confess they have deserved 
much more of this nation, than they have undeserved. 
And I persuade me that God was pleased with their res- 
titution, signing it as he did, with such a signal victory, 
when so just a part of the nation were desperately inspired 
to call back again their Egyptian bondage. 

" So much the more it now amazes me, that they, whose 
lips were yet scarce closed for giving thanks for that great 
deliverance, should be now relapsing, and so soon again 
backsliding into the same fault, which they confest so 
lately, and so solemnly to God and the world, and more 
lately punished in those Cheshire rebels ; that they should 
now dissolve that Parliament which they themselves re- 
established and acknowledged for their supreme power in 
their other day's humble representation ; and all this, for 
no other apparent cause of public concernment to the 
church and Commonwealth, but only for discommissioning 
14* 



154 LIFE OF MILTON. 

nine great officers of the army ; which had not bin don, 
as is reported, but upon notice of their intentions against 
the Parliament. 

" I presume not to give my censure of this action, not 
knowing, as yet I do not, the bottom of it. I speak only 
what it appears to us without doors, till better cause be 
declared, and I am sure to all other nations, most illegal 
and scandalous, I fear me barbarous, or any scarce to be 
exampled among any barbarians, that a paid army should, 
for no other cause, thus subdue the supreme power which 
set them up. This, I say, other nations will judge to the 
sad dishonour of that army, lately so renowned for the 
civilist and best ordered in the world, and by us here at 
home for the most conscientious. Certainly if the great 
officers and soldiers of the Holland, French, and Venetian 
forces, should thus sit in council, and write from garrison 
to garrison against their superiors, they might as easily 
reduce the king of France, or Duke of Venice, and put the 
United Provinces in like disorder and confusion ! Why 
do they not, being most of them held ignorant of the true 
religion? Because the light of nature, the laws of hu- 
man reverence of their magistrates, covenants, engage- 
ments, loyalty, allegiance, keep them in awe. How 
grievous will it then be ! How infamous to the true re- 
ligion which we profess ! How dishonourable to the 
name of God, that his fear, and the power of his know- 
ledge in an army professing to be his, should not work 
that obedience, that fidelity to their supreme magistrates, 
that levied them and paid them, when tlie light of nature, 
the laws of human society, covenants and contracts, yea, 
common shame, works in other armies amongst the worst 
of them, which will undoubtedly pull down the heavy 
judgment of God among us, who cannot but avenge their 



LIFE OF MILTON. 155 

hypocricies, violations of truth and holiness, if they be 
indeed so as they yet seem. 

" For, neither do I speak this in reproach of the army, 
but as jealous of their honour, inciting them to manifest 
and pubHsh with all speed, some better cause of these 
their late actions, than hath hitherto appeared, and to 
send out the Achan among them, whose close ambition in 
all probability abuses their honest natures against their 
meaning to these disorders : their readiest way to bring in 
again the common enemy, and with him the destruction 
of true religion and civil liberty. 

" But, because our evils are now grown more danger- 
ous and extreme than to be remedied by complaints, it 
concerns us now to find out what remedies may be likeliest 
to save us from approaching ruin. Being now in anar- 
chy, without a counselling and governing power ; and the 
army, I suppose, finding themselves insufficient to dis- 
charge at once both military and civil affairs, the first 
thing to be found out with all speed, without which no 
commonwealth can subsist, must be a senate or general 
council of state, in whom must be the power, first to pre- 
serve the public peace, next the commerce with foreign 
nations, and lastly to raise money for the management of 
these affairs : this must be the Parliament re-admitted to 
sit, or a council of state, allowed of by the army, since 
they only now have the power. The terms to be stood 
on are, liberty of conscience to all professing the Scrip- 
ture rule of their faith and worship : and the abjuration 
of a single person. 

" If the ParUament be again thought on to save honour 
on both sides, the well affected party in the city, and the 
congregated churches, may be induced to mediate by 
public addresses, and brotherly beseechings ; which, if 
there be that saintship among us which is talked of, ought 



156 LIFE OF MILTON. 

to be of highest and undeniable persuasion to reconcile- 
ment. If the Parliament be thought well dissolved, as 
not complying fully to grant liberty of conscience, and the 
necessary consequence thereof, the removal of a forced 
maintainance upon ministers, then must the army forth- 
with choose a council of state, whereof as many to be of 
the Parliament, as are undoubtedly affected to those two 
conditions proposed. 

" That which I conceive only able to cement and unite 
for ever the army, either to the parliament recalled, or 
this chosen council, must be a mutual league and oath, 
private or public, not to forsake each other till death ; 
that is to say, that the army be kept up, and all these offi- 
cers in their places during life, and so likewise the parlia- 
ment, or counsellors, which will be no way unjust, con- 
sidering their known merits on either side in council or 
in field : unless any be found false to any of these two 
principles, or otherwise personally criminous in the judg- 
ments of the two parties. If such an union of this be not 
accepted on the army's part, be confident there is a sin- 
gle person underneath. That the army be upheld, the 
necessity of our affairs and factions will constrain long 
enough perhaps to content the longest liver in the army. 
And whether the civil government be an annual democra- 
cy, or a perpetual aristocracy, is not to me a considera- 
tion for the perils in which we are, and the hazard of our 
safety from our common enemy, gaping at present to de- 
vour us. That it be not an oligarchy, or the faction of a 
few, may be easily prevented by the members being of 
their own choosing, who may be found infallibly constant 
to those two conditions forenamed, full liberty of con- 
science and the abjuration of monarchy proposed : and 
the well ordered committees of their faithful adherents in 



LIFE OF MILTON. 157 

every county may give this government the resemblance 
and effects of a perfect democracy. 

" As for the reformation of laws, and the places of ju- 
dicature, whether it be here as at present, or in every 
county, as hath been long aimed at, and many such pro- 
posals, tending, no doubt, to public good, they may be 
considered in due time, when we are past these per- 
nicious pangs, in a hopeful way of health, and a firm 
constitution. But, unless these things, as I have above 
proposed, one way or other, be once settled, in my fear, 
which God avert, we instantly ruin ; or, at best, become 
the servants of one or another single person, the secret 
author and fomentor of these disturbunces. 

" You have the sense of my present thoughts, as much 
as I understand of these affairs, freely imparted at your 
request : and the persuasion you wrought in me, that I 
may chance hereby to be somewhat serviceable tothe com- 
monwealth, in a time when all ought to be endeavoring what 
good they can, whether much or but little. With this 
you may do what you please, put out, put in, communi- 
cate or suppresse : you offend not one, who only obeyed 
your opinion, that in doing what I have done, I might hap- 
pen to offer something which might be of use in this great 
time of need. However, I have not been wanting to the 
opportunity which you have presented before me, of 
showing the readiness which 1 have, in the midst of my 
unfitness, to whatever may be required of me as a public 
duty." 

October 20th, 1659. 

He then published, with a view to prevent the rising 
whirlwind which he considered likely to overwhelm the 
nation in destruction, " The ready and safe way to esta- 
blish a free Commonwealth." 



158 LIFE OF KILTON. 

" Although, since the writing of this treatise, the face 
of things hath had some change, writs for new elections 
have been recalled, and the members at first chosen re- 
admitted from exclusion ; yet not a little rejoiced to hear 
declared resolutions of those who are in power tending to 
the establishment of a free commonwealth, and to remove, 
if it be possible, this noxious humour of returning to bon- 
dage, instilled of late by some deceivers, and nourished 
from bad principles and false apprehensions among too 
many of the people, I thought best not to suppress what I 
had written, hoping it may now be of much more use and 
concernment to be freely published in the midst of our 
elections, to a free parliament or their sittings, to consider 
freely of the government, whom it behoves to have all 
things represented to them that may direct their judg- 
ment therein ; and I never read of any state, scarce 
of any tyrant grown so incurable, as to refuse counsel 
from any in a time of pubhck deliberation, much less to 
be offended. If their absolute determination be to enthral 
us, before so long a lent of servitude they may permit us 
a little shroving-time first, wherein to speak freely, and 
take our leaves of liberty." In a second edition of this 
work he thus speaks : — 

'< The Parliament of England, assisted by a great num. 
ber of the people who appeared and stuck to them faith- 
fullest in defence of religion and their civil liberties, 
judging kingship by long experience a government unne- 
cessary, burdensome and dangerous, justly and magnani- 
mously abolished it, turning regal bondage into a free 
commonwealth, to the admiration and terror of our emu- 
lous neighbours. They took themselves not bound by 
the light of nature or religion to any former covenant, 
from which the king himself, by many forfeitures of a latter 
date or discovery, and our own long consideration there- 



LIFE OF MILTON. 159 

on, had more and more unbound us, both to himself and 
his posterity ; as hath been ever the justice and prudence 
of all wise nations that have ejected tyranny. They cov- 
enanted to i)reserve the hinges person and authoi'ity, in the 
preservation of the true religion and our liberties ; not in his 
endeavoring to bring in upon our consciences a popish 
religion ; upon our liberties thraldom ; upon our lives de- 
struction, by his occasioning if not coniplotting, as was 
afterwards discovered, the Irish massacre ; his fomenting 
and arming the rebellion ; his covert league with the 
rebels against us ; his refusing more than seven times 
propositions most just and necessary to the true religion 
and our liberties, tendered him by the parliament both of 
England and Scotland. 

" And what will they at best say of us, and of the whole 
English name, but scoffingly, as of that foolish builder 
mentioned by our Saviour, who began to build a tower, 
and was not able to finish it ? Where is this goodly tow- 
er of a commonwealth, which the English began to build ?" 

He thus boldly remonstrates with the nation in regard 
to the invitation which it was proposed to make to Charles. 
*' If there be a king, which the inconsiderate multitude 
are now so mad upon, mark how far short we are like to 
come of all those happinesses which in a free state we 
shall be immediately possessed of." 

After shewing what a tide of immorality and profane- 
ness it might be expected would flow after the restoration 
of the libertine who was considered by the abettors of 
monarchy the hereditary successor to the throne, he says : 

" I will now proceed to show more particularly where- 
in our freedom and flourishing condition will be more am- 
pie and secure to us under a free commonwealth than 
under kingship. 

" The whole freedom of man consists either in spirit- 



160 LIFE OF MILTON. 

ual or civil liberty. As for spiritual, who can be at rest, 
who can enjoy any thing in this world with contentment, 
who hath not liberty to serve God, and to save his own 
soul, according to the best light which God hath planted 
in him to that purpose, by the reading of his revealed will, 
and the guidance of his Holy Spirit ? That this is best 
pleasing to God, and that the whole Protestant Church 
aljows no supream judge or rule in matters of religion, 
but the Scriptures, and these to be interpreted by the 
Scriptures themselves, which necessarily implies liberty 
of conscience, I have heretofore proved at large in anoth- 
er treatise, and might yet further by the public declara- 
tions, confessions and admonitions of whole churches and 
states, obvious in all histories since the Reformation. 

" This liberty of conscience, which above all other 
things, ought to be to all men dearest and most precious, 
no government more inclinable not to favour only, but to 
protect, than a free commonwealth ; as being most mag- 
nanimous, most fearless, and confident of its own pro- 
ceedings. Whereas kingship, though looking big, yet 
indeed, most pusillanimous, full of fears, full of jealousies, 
startled at every umbrage, as it hath been observed of old 
to have suspected most, and mistrusted them who were 
in most esteem for virtue and generosity of mind ; so it is 
now known to have most in doubt and suspicion them 
who are most reputed to be religious. What liberty of 
conscience can we expect from those who from the cra- 
dle have been trained up and governed by Popish and 
Spanish counsels, and on such depending hitherto for ^Jib- 
sistence ?" 

The commander-in-chief in Scotland, Monk, had ar- 
rived in London, April, 1G59, when the following letter 
was addressed to that general by Milton. This was 
entitled, 



LIFE OF MILTON. 161 

" The present means, and brief delineation of a Free 
Commonwealth, easy to be put in practice, and without 
delay. In a letter to General Monk." This was pub- 
lished from the manuscript in his works, after his death. 

"First, All endeavours speedily to be used, that the 
ensuing elections be of such as are already firm, or in- 
clinable to constitute a free commonwealth, (according to 
the former qualifications decreed in parliament, and not 
yet repealed, as I hear,) without single person, or House 
of Lords. If there be not such, but the contrary, who 
foresees not that our liberties will be utterly lost in this 
next parliament, without some powerful course taken of 
speediest prevention ? The speediest way will be to call 
up forthwith the chief gentlemen out of every county, to 
lay before them (as your Excellency hath already, both 
in your published letters to the army, and your declara- 
tion recited to members of parliament) the danger and 
confusion of re-admitting kingship in this land ; especial- 
ly against the rules of all prudence and example, in a 
family once ejected, and thereby not to be trusted with 
the power of revenge ; that you will no longer delay them 
with vain expectation, but will put into their hands forth- 
with the possession of a free commonwealth, if they will 
first return immediately and elect them by such at least 
of the people as are rightly qualified ; a standing coun- 
cil in every city and great town, which may then be dig- 
nified by the name of city, continually to consult the good 
and flourishing state of that place, with a competent ter- 
ritory adjoined ; to assume the judicial laws ; either 
those that are, or such as they themselves shall now make 
severally, in each commonalty, and all judicatures, all 
magistrates, to the administration of all justice between 
man and man, and all the ornaments of public civility, 
academies, and such like in their own hands. Matters 

15 



162 LIFE (Jr MILTOW, 

appertaining to men of several counties, or territories, 
may be determined as they are here at London, or in 
some more convenient place, under equal judges. 

" Next, That in every such capital place, they will choose 
them the usual number of ablest knights and burgesses, 
engaged for a commonwealth to make up the parliament, 
(or, as it will be henceforth be better called,) the Grand 
or General Council of the Nation, whose office must be, 
with due caution, to dispose of forces both by sea and 
land, under the conduct of your Excellency, for the pre- 
servation of peace both at home and abroad ; must raise 
and manage the public revenue, but with provided in- 
spection of their accompts ; must administer all forien af- 
fairs, make all general laws, peace or war, but not with- 
out assent of the standing council in each city, or such 
other general assembly as may be called on such occa- 
sion from the whole territory, where they may, without 
mach trouble deliberate on all things fully, and send up 
their suffrages within a set time, by deputies appointed. 
Though this grand Council be perpetual, (as in that book 
I proved would be best, and most conformable to best 
example,) yet they will then, thus limited, have so little 
matter in their hands, or power to endanger our liberty, 
and the people so much in theirs to prevent them, having 
all judicial laws in their own choice, and free votes in all 
those which concern generally the whole commonwealth, 
that we shall have little cause to fear the perpetuity of our 
general senate, which will be then nothing else but a firm 
foundation and custody of our public liberty, peace, and 
union, through the whole commonwealth, and the trans- 
actions of our affairs with forien nations. 

" If this expedient be not thought enough, the known 
expedient may at length be used of a partial rotation. 
• "Lastly, If these gentlemen convocated, refuse these 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



163 



fair and noble offers of immediate liberty and happy con- 
dition, no doubt there be enough in every county who will 
thankfully accept them, your Excellency once more de- 
claring publicly this to be your mind, and having a faith- 
ful veteran army, so ready and good, to assist you in the 
prosecution thereof. For the full and absolute adminis- 
tration of law in every county, which in the difficultest of 
these proposals, hath been of most long desired, and the 
not granting it held a general grievance. The rest, when 
they shall see the beginnings and proceedings of these 
constitutions proposed, and the orderly, the decent, the 
civil, the safe, the noble effects thereof, will be soon con- 
vinced, and by degrees come in of their own accord, and 
be partakers of so happy a government." 

He next published "■ Brief Notes upon a late Sermon, 
entitled, ' The fear of God and the King ;' preached and 
since published, by Matthew Griffith, D. D. and Chaplain 
to the King. Wherein many notorious wresting of Scrip- 
ture, and other falsities, are observed." 

*' I affirmed, in the preface of a late discourse, entitled, 
'The ready way to establish a free Commonwealth, and 
-the dangers of re-admitting Kingship into this Nation,' 
that the humour of returninoj to our old bondage, was in- 
stilled of late by seme deceivers : and to make good what 
I then affirmed was not without just ground, one of those 
deceivers I present here to the people, and if I prove him 
not such, refuse not to be so accounted in his stead." 

" He begins," says Milton, " in his epistle to the Gen- 
eral, [Monk,] and moves cunningly for a license to be 
admitted physician both to church smd state ; then sets 
out his practice in physical terms, * an wholesome elec- 
tuary, to be taken every morning next our hearts ;' tells 
of the opposition which he meets with from the college of 



164 LIFE OF MILTON. 

State physicians : then lays before you his drugs and in- 
gredients : strong purgations in the pulpit, contempered 
of the myrrh of mortification, the aloes of confession and 
contrition, the rhubarb of restitution and satisfaction. A 
pretty fantastic dose of divinity from a pulpit mountebank, 
not unlike the fox, that turning pedlar, opened his pack 
of wares before the kid ; though he now would seem to 
personate the good Samaritan, undertaking to describe 
the Rise and Progress of our National Malady, and to 
prescribe the remedy, which how he performs we shall 
quickly see. 

"He commences his address," says Milton, '' with an 
infamous calumny and address to his E^xcellency, [Monk,] 
that he would be pleased to carry on what he had so hap- 
pily begun, in the name and cause, not of God only, which 
we doubt not, but of his anointed, meaning the late king's 
son ; which is to charge him most audaciously and falsly 
with th« renouncing of his own public promises and de- 
clarations both to the parliament and the army, and we 
trust his actions, ere long, will deter such insinuating slan- 
derers from thus approaching him fox the future." 

" The text, ' My son, fear God, and the king, and meddle 
not with them that he seditious or given to change.^ " That 
we have no king," Milton says, " since the putting down 
of kingship in this commonwealth, is manifest by this last 
parliament, who, to the time of their dissolving, not only 
made no address at all to any king, but summoned this 
next to come by the writ formerly appointed of a free 
commonwealth, without restitution, or the leact mention 
of any kingly right or power ; which could not be, if there 
were at present any king in England. The main part, 
therefore, of your Sermon, if it mean a king in the usual 
sense, is either impertinent and absurd," dec. 

He says, " Nor are you happier in relating or moral. 



LIFE OF MIJLTOJT. 165 

izing your fable. ^ The Frogs (being once a free nation, 
saith the fable) petitioned Jupiter for a king : he tumbled 
among them a log ; they found it insensible. They pe- 
titioned then for a king that should be active ; he sent 
them a crane, (a stork, saith the fable,) which straight fell 
to picking them up.' This you apply to the reproof of them 
who desire change : whereas the true moral shows rather 
the folly of those, who being free, seek a king ; which 
for the most part, as a log, lies heavy upon his subjects, 
without doing aught worthy of his (^nity and the charge 
to maintain him, or, as a stork, is ever picking them up 
or devouring them." 

He thus concludes : " As for your Appendix annexed, 
of the ' Samaritan revived,' finding it so foul a libel against 
all the well effected of this land since the very time of 
ship money ; against the wiiole Parliament, both Lords 
and Commons, except those that fled to Oxford ; against 
the whole reformed church, not only in England and 
Scotland, but all over Europe (in comparison of whom you 
and your Prelatical party are more truly Schismatics and 
Sectarians, nay, more properly Fanatics in your fanes 
and gilded temples, than those whom you revile by those 
names,) and meeting with no more Scripture or solid 
reason in your ' Samaritan wine and oyl,' than hath 
already been found sophisticate and adulterate ; I leave 
your malignant narrative, as needing no other confuta- 
tionsthan the just censure already passed upon it by the 
council of state.'' 

After having told the Parliament, the soldiers, and 
others, what they had to expect from " the Son of Charles 
returning," he thus concludes : — " What I have spoken, 
is the language of that which is not called amiss, the good 
old cause : if it seem strange to any, it will not seem more 
strange, I hope than convincing to backsliders. Thus 
15* 



166 LIFE OF MILTON* 

much I should perhaps have said, though I were sure I 
should have spoken only to trees and stones, and had none 
to cry to, but with the prophet, O Earthy Earth, Earth ! to 
tell the very soil itself what her perverse inhabitants are 
deaf to. Nay, though what I have spoke should happen 
(which Thou suffer not, who didst create mankind free ; 
nor thou next, who didst redeem us from being servants 
of men !) to be the last words of our expiring liberty. But 
I trust I shall have spoken persuasion to an abundance of 
sensible and injenuous men ; to some, perhaps whom God 
may raise of these stones to become children of reviving 
liberty ; and may reclaim, though they seem now choos- 
ing them a captain back for Egypt, to bethink themselves 
a little, and consider whither they are rushing ; to exhort 
this torrent also of the people, not to be so impetuous, but 
to keep their due channel ; and at length recovering and 
uniting their better resolutions, now that they see already 
how open and unbounded the rage is of our common ene- 
my, to slay these ruinous proceedings, jus'ly and timely 
fearing to what a precipice of destruction the deluge of 
this epidemic madness would hurry us, through the gene- 
ral defection of a misguided and abused multitude." Thus 
nobly did this great man display his patriotic zeal for hi§ 
favourite republic ; but all in vain I 



LIFE OF MILTON. 167 



CHAPTER VI. 

1655—1658. 

This seems to be the proper place to introduce the histo- 
ry of that noble zeal, which the Protector Cromwell ma- 
nifested in defending the protestruit religion ; especially 
as it will afford the opportunity of introducing all the let- 
ters written in Latin by Milton in the name of his noble 
Master, to the Popish and Protestant Potentates on the 
continent. The intrepid and humane conduct of Crom- 
well on this sad occasion advanced his character to an 
unparalleled height, even in the estimation of the Popish 
monarchs themselves. " The duke of Savoy raised," says 
the author of the Critical History of Eng-k-nd, " a new 
persecution of the Vaudois, massacreing many, and dri- 
ving the rest from their habitations. Wherefore Crom- 
well sent to the French court, demanding of them to 
oblige that duke, [of Alva,] whom he knew to be in their 
power, to put a stop to his unjust fury, or otherwise he 
must break with them. The cardinal [Mazarini] objected 
to this as unreasonable ; he would do good offices, he said, 
but could not answer for the effects. However, nothing 
would satisfy the Protector, till they obliged the duke to 
restore all that he had taken from his protestant subjects, 
and to renew their former privileges. Cromwell wrote 
on this occasion to the duke of Alva himself, and by mis- 
take omitted the title of Royal Highness on his letter, 
upon which the major part of the council of Savoy were 
for returning it unopened ; but one representing that 



168 LIFE OF MILTON, 

Cromwell would not pass by such an affront, but would 
certainly lay Villa Franca in ashes, and set the Swiss 
Cantons upon Savoy, the letter was read, and with the 
[French] Cardinal's influence had the desired success. 
The Protector also raised money in England for the poor 
sufferers, and sent over an agent to settle their affairs,* 

* As the following remarkable anecdote mentions Milton probably as 
the Secretary of the Protector, it may not be unsuitable to introduce it 5 
especially as it is so characteristic of the decision both of Cromwell and 
Milton, who were in that respect kindred spirits. It is from a printed 
speech made to the house of commons by a Mr. Poultney, in a debate on 
the complaints of the West India merchants, two sessions before the war 
against Spain was declared : — "This was what Oliver Cromwell did in a 
like case that happened during his government, and in a case where a more 
powerful nation was concerned than ever Spain could pretend to be. In 
the histories of this lime, we are told that an English merchant ship was 
taken in the chops of the channel, carried into St. Maloes, and there con- 
fiscated upon some groundless pretence. As soon as the master of the ship, 
who was an honest q.iaker, got home, he presented a petition to the pro- 
tector in council, setting forth his case, and praying for redress. Upon 
hearing the petition, the protector told his council, he would take that affair 
upon himself, and ordered the man to attend him next morning. He exa- 
mined him strictly as to all the circumstances of this case, and finding by 
his answers that he was a plain honest man, and that he had been con- 
cerned in no unlawful trade, he asked him if he would go to Paris with a 
letter 1 The man answered he would, * Well then,' says the protector, 
^ prepare for your journey, and come to me to-morrow morning.' Next 
morning he gave hi^ a letter to cardinal Mazarini, and told him he must 
stay but three days for an answer. ' The answer I mean,' says he, ' is the 
full value of what you might have made of your ship and cargoe : and tell 
the cardinal, that if it is not paid you in three days, you have express or- 
ders from me to return home.' The honest, blunt quaker, we may suppose^ 
followed his instructions to a tittle ; but the cardinal, according to the man- 
ner of ministers when they are any way pressed, began to shuffle : there- 
fore, the quaker returned, as he was bid. As soon as the Protector saw 
him, he asked, ' Well, friend, have you got your money ?' and upon the 
man answering him he did not, the Protector said, ' Then leave your di- 
rection with my Secretary^ and you shall soon hear from me.' Upon this 
occasion that great man did not stay to negociate, or to explain by long te- 
dious memorials the reasonableness of his demand ; no, though there was 
a French minister residing here, he did not so much as acquaint him with 



LIFE OF MILTON. 169 

By an order of Cromwell, a collection for this object 
was made throughout all the parish churches in England, 
Wales, and Ireland : it amounted to £38,241. 10s. Gd., 
the Protector himself commencing the subscription with 
£2000.* The ambassador which he sent to Piedmont 
was Sir Samuel Morland, who afterwards published the 
history of this most murderous crusade, illustrating it with 
engravings of some of the most revolting and disgusting 
scenes that can possibly affect the heart or meet the eye. 

The following inimitable lines of Milton are founded 
upon these horrible representations : — 

" ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT. 

" Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold ; 
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 
When all our fathers worship'd stocks and stones, 
Forget not ; in thy book record their groans 
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that roll'd 
Mother with infants down the rocks.t Their moans 

thf story, but immediately sent a man of war or two to the channel, with 
orders to seize every French ship they could meet with. Accordingly they 
returned in a few days with two or three prizes, which the Protector order- 
ed immediately to be sold, and out of the produce, he paid the quaker what 
he had demanded for the ship and cargo. Then he sent for the French 
minister, gave him an account of what had happened, and told him there 
was a balance, which, if he pleased, should e paid into him, to the end 
he might deliver it to those of his countrymen «rho were the owners of the 
French ships that had been so taken and sold."—" Review of the Political 
life of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of Eng- 
land, Scotland, and Ireland. By the late John Bankes, Esq. ; with an 
Appendix, containing some curious pieces relating to the Lord Protect- 
or. A new edition." London. Sold by A. Thpmpson, and others : with- 
out a date. This work ought to be re-printed. 

* Holland's History of the Evangelical Churches in the Valleys of 
Piedmont, 1658, p. 584, 593. 

t Morland relates, that "a mother was hurl'd down a mighty rock^ 
with a little infant in her arms ; and three days after was found dead with 



170 LIFE OF MILTON. 

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
To heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow 
O'er all the Italian fields w^here still doth ^row 
A hundred fold, who have learn' d thy way, 
Early mayfly the Babylonian woe.'. 

The compassion and liberality of the Lord Protector 
were most remarkably exemplified on this occasion. In 
a narrative, published by special order of the Lord Pro- 
tector and his Council, preserved by Morland, p. 585, it 
is said of Cromwell : " Having upon his spirits a deep 
sense of their calamities, which were occasioned by the 
faithful adherence to the profession of the Reformed re- 
ligion, was pleased not only to mediate by most pathetic 
letters on their behalf to the King of France and Duke of 
Savoy, but did also seriously invite the people of this na- 
tion to seek the Lord, by prayer and humiliation, in re- 
ference to their thus sad condition and future life." 

It is pleasing to be informed, by the same historian, 
of " the notable effects of the intercession of His High- 
ness for the poor distressed Protestants of the Valleys of 
Piedmont, upon the spirits of the neighbouring princes 
and states of the Protestant profession ;"* it was an high 
honour to have been the instrument in the hand of Di- 
vine Providence, of delivering the prey from the fang of 
the oppressor. 

"There was," says Mr. Banks, "yet a farther design, 
very advantageous to the Protestant cause with which 
Cromwell intended to have begun his kingship, had he 
taken it upon him ; and that was, the instituting a coun- 
cil for the Protestant religion, in opposition to the congre- 

the little child alive, but fast clasped between the arms of the dead mo- 
ther, which were cold and stiff, insomuch that those who found them had 
much ado to get the young child out." — History of the Valleys of Pied- 
mont, folio, London, 1655, with plates. 

* norland's History, p. 597. 



LIFE OF MILTON. 171 

gation de propaganda at Rome. This body was to con- 
sist of seven counsellors, and four secretaries for differ- 
ent provinces. The secretaries were to have £500. a 
year salary a piece, to keep correspondence every 
where ; £10,000. a year was to be a fund for ordinary 
emergencies ; further supplies were to be provided as 
occasions required ; and Chelsea College, then an old 
ruinous building, was fitted up for their reception : this 
was a great design, and worthy of the man who had 
formed it."* 

The following letters, written by Milton to the poten- 
tates of Europe, entreating their assistance to put a stop 
to the cruelties of the Duke of Savoy, show the senti- 
ments and feelings of the Lord Protector, who appears 
in the most amiable light as an enlightened and pious 
Protestant, and ought certainly to find a place in a Life 
of Milton, as they doubtless exhibit, in a strong point of 
light, the characteristic features of his spiritual and ar- 
dent mind in the cause of pure and undefiled rehgion, of 
oppressed and suffering humanity .f 



" Oliver, Protector of the Republick of England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland, To the most Illustrious Prince of 
Tarentum, greeting : 

"Your love of religion, apparently made known 
in your letters to us delivered, and your excelling piety 
and singular afl^ection to the Reformed Churches, more 
especially considering the nobility and splendour of your 
character, and in a kingdom too, wherein there are so 

♦ Political Life of Cromwell, p. 229. 

t These letters are printed from Philips's Life of Milton, published 1694. 



172 LIFE OF MILTON. 

many and such abounding hopes proposed to all of em- 
inent quality that revolt from the orthodox faith, so many 
miseries to be undergone by the resolute and constant, 
gave us an occasion of great joy and consolation of mind. 
Nor was it less grateful to us that we had gained your 
good opinion, upon the same account of religion, which 
ought to render your Highness most chiefly beloved and 
dear to ourselves. We call God to witness, that what- 
ever hopes or expectations the churches, accordingto your 
relation, had of us, we may be able one day to give them 
satisfaction, if need require, or at least to demonstrate to 
all men how much it is our desire never to fail them. 
Nor should we think any fruit of our labours, or of this 
dignity or supream employment which we hold in our 
Republick greater, than that we might be in a condition 
to be serviceable to the enlargement, or the welfare, or 
which is more sacred, to the peace of the Reformed 
Church. In the mean time, we exhort and beseech your 
Lordship to remain stedfast to the last minute in the or- 
thodox religion, with the same resolution and constancy, 
as you profess it received from your ancestors with piety 
and zeal. Nor, indeed, can there be any thing more 
worthy yourself, or your religious parents, nor in consi- 
deration of what you have deserved of us, though we 
wish all things for your own sake, that we can wish more 
noble and advantageous to your Lordship, than that you 
would take such methods, and apply yourself to such 
studies, that the churches, especially of your native 
country, under the discipline of which your birth and 
genius have rendered you illustriously happy, may 
be sensible of so much the more assured security in 
your protection, by how much you excel others in lustre 
and ability. 

" Whitehall, April, 1654." 



LIFE OF MILTOJf. 173 

*v* Oliver the Protector, &;c. To the most Serene Prince, 
I31MANUEL Duke of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont, 
greeting ; 

" Most Serene Prince, 

" Letters have been sent us from Geneva^ as 
also from the Dauphinate, and many other places border- 
ing upon your territories, wherein we are given to under- 
stand, that such of your Royal Highness's subjects as 
profess the Reformed Religion, are commanded by your 
Edict, and by your authority, within three days after the 
promulgation of your Edict, to depart their native seats 
and habitations, upon pain of capital punishment, and 
forfeiture of ail their fortunes and estates, unless they 
will give security to relinquish their religion within 
twenty days, and embrace the Roman Catholic faith. 
And that when they applied themselves to your Royal 
Highness in a most suppliant manner, imploring a revo- 
cation of the said Edict, and that being received into 
pristin favour, they might be restored to the liberty 
granted them by your predecessors, a part of your army 
fell upon them, most cruelly slew several, put others in 
chains, and compelled the rest to flye into desert places 
and to the mountains covered with snow, where some 
hundreds of families are reduced to such distress, that 
'tis greatly to be feared, they will in a short time all mis- 
erably perish through cold and hunger. These things, 
when they were related to us, we could not chuse but be 
touched with extreme grief and compassion for the suffer- 
ing and calamities of this afflicted people. Now in re- 
gard we must acknowledge ourselves linked together not 
only by the same tie of humanity, but by joynt commun- 
ion of the same religion, we thought it impossible for us 
to satisfie our duty to God, to brotherly charity, or our 

16 



174 LIFE OF MILTON. 

profession of the same religion, if we should onely be af- 
fected with a bare sorrow for the misery and calamity of 
our brethren, and not contribute all our endeavours to 
relieve and succour them in their unexpected adversity, 
as much as in us lies. Therefore in a greater measure 
we most earnestly beseech and conjure your Royal 
Highness, that you would call back to your thoughts the 
moderation of your most serene predecessors, and the 
Uberty by them granted and confirmed from time to 
time to their subjects the Vaudois, In granting and con- 
firming which, as they did that, which without all ques- 
tion was most grateful to God, who has bin pleased to re- 
serve the jurisdiction and power over the conscience to 
himself alone, so there is no doubt but that they had a due 
consideration of their subjects also, whom they found 
stout and most faithful in war, and always obedient in 
peace. And as your Royal Serenity in other things most 
laudably follows the footstepsof your immortal ancestors, 
so we again and again beseech your Royal Highness not 
to swerve from the path wherein they trod in this partic- 
ular ; but that you would vouchsafe to abrogate both this 
Edict, and whatsoever else may be decreed to the distur- 
bance of your subjects upon the account of the Reformed 
Religion ; that you would ratafie to them their conceded 
privileges and pristin liberty, and command their losses 
to be repaired, and that an end be put to their oppresl 
sions. Which if your Royal Highness shall be pleased 
to see performed, you will do a thing most acceptable to 
God, revive and comfort the miserable in dire calamity, 
and most highly oblige all your neighbours that profess 
the Reformed Religion, but more especially ourselves, 
who shall be bound to look upon your clemency and be- 
nignity towards your subjects as the fruit of our earnest 
solicitation. Which will both engage us to a reciprocal 



XIFE OF MILTON. 175 

return of all good offices, and lay the solid foundations 
not only of establishing, but increasing alliance and 
friendship between this republick and your dominions. 
Nor do we less promise this to ourselves from your jus- 
tice and moderation ; to which we beseech Almighty God 
to enchne your mind and thoughts. And so we cordial- 
ly implore just Heaven to bestow upon your Highness 
and your people the blessings of peace and truth, and 
prosperous success in all your affairs. 

''Whitehall, May, 1655." 



*•' Oliver, Protector of the Republick of England, to the 
most Serene Prince of Transilvania, greeting. 

" Most Serene Prince, 

"By your Letters of the 16th of Nov. 1654, you 
have made us sensible of your singular good-will and af- 
fection toward us ; and your Envoy, v^ho delivered those 
letters to us, more amply declared your desire of contract- 
ing alliance and friendship with us. Certainly for our 
parts, we do not a little rejoyce at this oppo.rtunity offered 
us to declare and make manifest our affection to your 
Highness, and how great a value we justly set upon your 
person. But after fame had reported to us your egregious 
merits and labours undertaken in behalf of the Christian 
Republick, when you were pleased that all these things, 
and what you have farther in your thoughts to do in the de- 
fence and for promoting Christian interest, should be in 
friendly manner imparted to us by letters from yourself, 
this afforded us a more plentiful occasion of joy, to hear, 
that God, in these remoter regions, had raised up to him- 



176 LIFE OF MiLTorr, 

self so potent and renowned a minister of heaven so fame<3 
for his courage and success, should be desirous to asso^ 
ciate with us in the common defence of the Protestant 
Religion, at this time wickedly assailed by words and 
deeds. Nor is it to be questioned but that God, who has 
infused into us both, though separated by such a spacious 
interval of many climates, the same desires and thoughts 
of defending the orthodox religion, will be our instructor 
and author of the ways and means whereby we may be 
assistant and useful to ourselves and the rest of the Re- 
formed cities, provided we watch all opportunities that 
God shall put into our hands, and be not wanting to lay 
hold of them. In the mean time we cannot, without an 
extream and penetrating sorrow, forbear putting your 
Highness in mind how unmercifully the Duke of Savoy 
has persecuted his own subjects, professing the orthodox 
faith, in certain valleys at the feet of the Alps. Whom 
he has not only constrained by a most severe Edict, as 
many as refuse to embrace the Catholick Religion, to 
forsake their native habitations, goods and estates, but 
has fallen upon them with his army, put several most 
cruelly to the sword, others more barbarously tormented 
to death, and driven the greatest number to the moun- 
tains, there to be consumed with cold and hunger, expo- 
sing their houses to the fury, and their goods to the plun- 
der of his executioners. These things, as they have al- 
ready bin related to your Highness, so we readily assure 
ourselves, that so much cruelty cannot but be grievously 
displeasing to your ears, and that you will not be wanting 
to afford your aid and succour to those miserable wretches> 
if there be any that survive so many slaughters and ca- 
lamities. For our parts we have written to the Duke of 
Savoy, beseeching him to remove his infenced anger froms 
his subjects ; as also to the king of France, that he would 



LIFE OF MILTON. ]77 

vouchsafe to do the same ; and lastly to the princes of the 
Reformed Religion, to the end they might understand our 
sentiments concerning so fell and savage a piece of cru- 
elty. Which though first begun upon those poor and help- 
less people, however threatens all that profess the same 
Religion, and therefore imposes upon all a greater neces- 
sity of providing for themselves in general, and consult- 
ing the common safety ; which is the course that we shall 
always follow, as God shall be pleased to direct us. Of 
which your Highness may be assured, as also of our sin- 
cerity, and affection to your Serenity, whereby we are 
engaged to wish all prosperous success to your affairs, 
and a happy issue of all your enterprises and endeavours, 
in asserting the liberty of the gospel and the worshippers 
of it. 

" Whitehall, May, 1655. 



" Oliver, Protector, to the most Serene Prince, Charles 
GusTAvrs Adolphus, King of the Swedes, greeting. 

*' We make no question but that the fame of that 
most rigid Edict has reached your dominions, whereby 
the Duke of Savoy has totally ruined his Protestant sub- 
jects inhabiting the Alpine valleys, and commanded them 
to be extirminated from their native seats and habitations 
unless they will give security to renounce their religion 
received from their forefathers, in exchange for the Ro- 
man catholick superstition, and that within twenty days at 
farthest ; so that many being killed, the rest stripped to 
their skins and exposed to most certain destruction, are 
now forced to wander over desert mountains and through 
*16 



178 LIFE OF MILTON. 

perpetual winter, together with their wives and children, 
half dead with cold and hunger ; and that your Majesty- 
has laid it to heart with a pious sorrow and compassionate 
consideration we as little doubt. For that the Protestant 
name and cause, although they differ among themselves 
in some things of little consequence, is nevertheless the 
same in general and united in one common interest, the 
hatred of our adversaries, alike infenced against Protes- 
tants, very easily demonstrates. Now there is nobody can 
be ignorant, that the kings of the Swedes have always 
joyned with the Reformed, carrying their victorious arms 
into Germany in defence of the protestants without distinc- 
tion. Therefore we make it our chief request, and that in 
a more especial manner to your Majesty, that you would 
solicit the Duke of Savoy by letters, and by interposing 
your intermediating authority, endeavour to avert the hor- 
rid cruelty of this Edict, if possible, from people no less 
innocent than rehgious. For we think it superfluous to 
admonish yom- Majesty, whither these rigourous begin- 
nings tend, and what they threaten to all the Protestants 
in general. But if he rather chuse to listen to his anger 
than to our joynt intreaties and intercessions, if there be 
any tye, any charity or communion of religion to be be- 
lieved and worshipped, upon consultations duly first com- 
municated to your Majesty and the chief of the Protestant 
princes, some other course is to be speedily taken, that 
such a numerous multitude of our innocent brethren may 
not miserably perish for want of succour and assistance. 
Which in regard we make no question but that it is your 
Majesties opinion and determination, there can be nothing 
in our opinion more prudently resolved, then to joyn our 
reputation, authority, councels, forces, and whatever else 
is needful, with all the speed that may be, in pursuance of 
so pious a design. In the mean time we beseech Almighty 
God to bless your Majesty." 



LIFE OF MILTON. 179 



" Oliver, Protector, &;c. to the High and Mighty Lords, 
the States of the United Provinces. 

" We make no question but that you have already 
bin informed of the Duke of Savoy^s Edict, set forth 
against his subjects inhabiting the valleys at the feet of 
the Alps, ancient professors of the orthodox faith ; by 
which Edict they are commanded to abandon their native 
habitations, stript of all their fortunes, unless within 
twenty days they embrace the Roman Faith ; and . with 
what cruelty the authority of this Edict has raged against 
a needy and harmless people ; many being slain by the 
soldiers, the rest plundered and driven from their houses, 
together with their wives and children, to combat cold 
and hunger among desert mountains, and perpetual snow. 
These things with what commotion of mind you heard re- 
lated, what a fellow-feeling of the calamities of brethren 
pierced your breasts, we readily conjecture from the 
depth of our own sorrow, which certainly is most heavy 
and afflictive. For being engaged together by the same 
type of Religion, no wonder we should be so deeply 
moved with the sanie affections upon the dreadful and 
undeserved sufferings of our brethren. Besides, that 
your conspicuous piety and charity toward the orthodox, 
wherever overborn and oppressed, has bin frequently ex- 
perienced in the most urging streights and calamities of 
the churches. For my own part, unless my thoughts de- 
ceive me, there is nothing wherein I should desire more 
willingly to be overcome, then in good-will and charity to- 
vv^ard brethren of the same religion afflicted and wronged 
in their quiet enjoyments ; as being one that would be ac- 
counted always ready to prefer the peace and safety of 
the churches before my particular interests. So far 



180 LIFE OF MILTON. 

therefore as hitherto lay in our power, we have written to 
the duke of Savoy, even almost to supplication, beseech- 
ing him that he would admit into his breast more placid 
thoughts and kinder effects of his favour towards his most 
innocent subjects and suppUants ; that he would restore 
the miserable to their habitations and estates, and grant 
'em their pristin freedom in the exercise of their religion. 
Moreover, we wrote to the chiefest princes and magis- 
trates of the ProtestantSj whom we thought most nearly 
concerned in these matters, that they would lend us their 
assistance to entreat and pacify the duke of Savoy in their 
behalf. And we make no doubt now but you have done 
the same and perhaps much more. For this so danger- 
ous a president, and lately renewed severity of utmost 
cruelty toward the Reformed, if the authors of it meet 
with prosperous success, to what apparent dangers it re- 
duces our religion, we need not admonish your prudence. 
On the other side, if the duke shall once but permit him- 
self to be atoned and won by our united applications, not 
onely our afflicted brethren, but we ourselves shall reap 
the noble abounding harvest, and reward of this laborious 
undertaking. But if he still persist in the same obstinate 
resolutions of reducing to utmost extremity those people, 
among whom our religion was either disseminated by the 
first doctors of the gospel, and preserved from the defile- 
ment of Superstition, or else restored to its pristin sinceri- 
ty long before other nations obtained that felicity ; and 
determins their utter extirpation and destruction ; we 
are ready to take such other course and counsels with 
yourselves, in common with the rest of our Reformed 
friends and confederates, as may be most necessary for 
the preservation of just and good men upon the brink of 
inevitable ruin, and to make the duke himself sensible, 
that we can no longer neglect the heavy oppressions and 
calamities of our orthodox brethren. Farewel." 



LIFE OF MILTON. 181 



" To the Evangelick Cities of Switzerland. 

" We make no question but the late calamity of 
the Piemontois, professing our religion, reached your 
ears, before the unwelcome news of it arrived with us. 
Who being a people under the protection and jurisdiction 
of the Duke of Savoy, and by a severe Edict of their prince 
commanded to depart their native habitations, unless 
within three days they gave security to embrace the Ro- 
man Religion, soon after were assailed by armed vio- 
lence, that turned their dwellings into slaughter-houses, 
while others without number, were terrified into banish- 
ment, where now naked and afflicted, without house or 
home, or any covering from the weather, and ready to 
perish through hunger and cold, they miserably wander 
through desert mountains, and depths of snow, together 
with their wives and children. And far less reason have 
we to doubt, but that, so soon as they came to your 
knowledge, you laid these things to heart, with a com- 
passion no less sensible of their multiplied miseries, than 
ourselves ; the more deeply imprinted perhaps in your 
minds, as being next neighbours to the sufferers. Be- 
sides, that we have abundant proof of your singular love 
and affection for the orthodox faith, of your constancy in 
retaining it, and] your fortitude in defending it. Seeing 
then, by the most strict communion of Religion, that you, 
together with ourselves, are all brethren alike, or rather 
one body with those unfortunate people, of which no mem- 
ber can be afflicted without the feeling, without pain, 
without the detriment and hazard of the rest ; we thought it 
convenient to write to your Lordships concerning this 
matter, and let you understand, how much we believe it 
to be the general interest of us all, as much as in us Ues^ 



182 LIFE OF MILTON. 

with our common aid and succour, to relieve our extir- 
minated and indigent brethren ; and not only to take care 
for removing their miseries and afflictions, but also to 
provide, that the mischief spread no farther, nor incroach 
upon ourselves in general, encouraged by example and 
success. We have written letters to the Duke of Savoy, 
wherein we have most earnestly besought him out of his 
wonted clemency, to deal more gently and mildly with 
his most faithful subjects, and to restore them, almost 
ruined as they are, to their goods and habitations. And 
we are in hopes, that by these our intreaties, or rather by 
the united intercessions of us all, the most Serene Prince 
at length will be atoned, and grant what we have re- 
quested with so much importunity. But if his mind be 
obstinately bent to other determinations, we are ready to 
communicate our consultations with yours, by what most 
prevalent means to relieve and re-establish most innocent 
men, and our most dearly beloved brethren in Christ, 
tormented and overlaid with so many wrongs and oppres- 
sions : and preserve 'era from inevitable and undeserved 
ruin. Of whose welfare and safety, as I am assured, that 
you according to your wonted piety, are most cordially 
tender, so, for our own parts, we cannot but in our opin- 
ion prefer their preservation before our most important 
Interests, even the safeguard of our own life. Farewel. 

O. P. 

" Superscribed, To the most illustrious and potent Lords, the Con- 
suls and Senators of the Protestant Cantons and Confederate 
Cities of Switzerland, greeting : 

" Westminster, May 19, 1655." 



LIFE OF MILTON. 183 

" To the most Serene arid Potent Prince, Lewis, King of 
France. 

" Most Serene and Potent King, 

" By your Majesty's letters which you wrote in 
answer to ours of the 25th o( May, we readily understand, 
that we failed not in our judgment, that the inhuman 
Slaughter and barbarous massacres of those men, who 
profess the Reformed Religion in Savoy, perpetrated by 
some of your regiments, were the effects neither of your 
orders nor commands. And it afforded us a singular oc- 
casion of joy, to hear that your Majesty had so timely 
signified to your collonels and officers, whose violent pre- 
cipitancy engaged 'em in those inhuman butcheries with- 
out the encouragement of lawful allowance, how dis- 
pleasing they were to your Majesty ; that you had admo- 
nished the Duke himself to forbear such acts of cruelty ; 
and that you had interposed with so much fidelity and 
humanity, all the high veneration paid you in that court, 
your near alliance and authority, for restoring to their 
ancient abodes those unfortunate exiles. And it was our 
hopes, that that Prince would in some measure have con- 
descended to the good pleasure and intercession of your 
Majesty. But finding not any thing obtained either by 
your own, nor the intreaties and i'mportunities of other 
Princes in the cause of the distressed, we deemed it not 
foreign from our duty, to send this noble person, under 
the character of our extraordinary envoy, to the DtiJce of 
Savoy, more amply and fully to lay before him, how deep- 
ly sensible we are of such exasperated cruelties inflicted 
upon the professors of the same Religion with ourselves, 
and all this too out of a hatred of the same worship. And 
we have reason to hope a success of this negotiation so 



184 LIFE OF MILTON. 

much the more prosperous, if your Majesty would vouch- 
safe to employ your authority and assistance once again 
with so much the more urgent importunity ; and as you 
have undertaken for those indigent people that they will 
be faithful and obedient to their Prince, so you would be 
gratiously pleased to take care of their welfare and safety, 
that no farther oppressions of this nature, no more such 
dismal calamities may be the portion of the innocent and 
peaceful. This being truly loyal and just in itself, and 
highly agreeable to your benignity and clemency, which 
every where protects in soft security so many of your sub- 
jects professing the same Religion, we cannot but expect, 
as it behoves us, from your Majesty. Which act of yours, 
as it will more closely bind to your subjection all the Pro- 
testants throughout your spacious dominions, whose affec- 
tion and fidelity to your predecessors and yourself in most 
important distresses have bin often conspicuously made 
knoimi ; so will it fully convince all foreign Princes, that 
the advice or intention of your Majesty were no way 
contributory to this prodigious violence, whatever inflam- 
ed your ministers and officers to promote it. More espe- 
cially, if your Majesty shall inflict deserved punishment 
upon those captains and ministers, who of their own au- 
thority, and to gratifie their own wills, adventured the per- 
petrating such dreadful acts of inhumanity. In the mean 
while, since your Maj'esty has assured us of your justly 
merited aversion to these most inhuman and cruel pro- 
ceedings, we doubt not but you will aflbrd a secure sanc- 
tuary and shelter within your kingdom to all those mise- 
rable exiles that shall flye to your Majesty for protection ; 
and that you will not give permission to any of your sub- 
jects to assist the Duke of Savoy to their prejudice. It 
remains that we make known to your Majesty, how highly 
we esteem and value your friendship : in testimony of 



LIFE OF MILTON. 185 

whichjwe farther affirm there shall never be wanting upon 
all occasions the real assurances and effects of our pro- 
testation. 

** Your Majesty's most affectionate, Oliver, Protector of the Com- 
monwealth of England, &c. 

*' Whitehall, July 29, 1655." 



" To the most eminent Lord, Cardinal Mazarine, 

" Most Eminent Lord Cardinal, 

" Having deemed it necessary to send this noble 
person to the king with letters, a copy of which is here 
enclosed, we gave him also farther in charge to salute 
your excellency in our name, as having entrusted to his 
fidelity certain other matters to be communicated to your 
eminency. In reference to which affairs, I entreat your 
eminency, to give him entire credit, as being a person in 
whom I have reposed a more than ordinary confidence. 

" Your eminencies most affectionate Oliver, Protector of the Com- 
monwealth of England. 

" JVhUehaU, July 29, 1655." 



" Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, 
to the most Serene Prince, Frederick TIL King of 
of Danemark, Norway, &;c. 

"With what a severe and unmerciful Edict, Tmma 
nuel, Duke of Savoy, has expelled from their native 

17 



186 I-IFE OF MILTON. 

seats his subjects inhabiting the valleys of Piemont, men 
otherwise harmless, onely for many years remarkably fa- 
mous for embracing the purity of religion ; and after a 
dreadful slaughter of some numbers, how he has exposed 
the rest to the hardships of those desert mountains, stript 
to their skins, and barred from all relief, we believe your 
Majesty has long since heard, and doubt not but that your 
Majesty is touched with a real commiseration of their 
sufferings, as becomes so puissant a defender and prince 
of the Reformed Faith. For indeed, the institutions of 
the Christian religion require, that whatever mischiefs and 
miseries any part of us undergo, it should behove us all 
to be deeply sensible of the same : nor does any man better 
than your Majesty foresee, if we may be thought able to 
give a right conjecture of your piety and prudence, what 
dangers the success and example of this fact portend to 
ourselves in particular, and to the whole Protestant name 
in general. We have written the more willingly to your- 
self, to the end we might assure your Majesty, that the 
same sorrow which we hope you have conceived for the 
calamity of our most innocent brethren, the same opinion, 
the same judgment you have of the whole matter, is 
plainly and sincerely our own. We have therefore sent 
our letters to the Duke of Savoy, wherein we have most 
importunately besought him to spare those miserable peo- 
pie that implore his mercy, and that he would no longer 
suffer that dreadful Edict to be in force. Which if your 
Majesty and the rest of the Reformed Princes would 
vouchsafe to do, as we are apt to believe they have alrea- 
dy done, there is some hope that the anger of the most 
Serene Duke may be asswaged, and that his indignation 
will relent upon the intercession and importunities of his 
neighbour princes. Or if he persist in his determinations, 
we protest ourselves ready, together with your Majesty, 



LIFE OF MILTON. 187 

and the rest of our confederates of the Reformed Reli- 
gion, to take such speedy methods as may enable us, as 
far as in us lies, to relieve the distresses of so many mis- 
erable creatures, and provide for their liberty and safety. 
In the mean time, vi^e beseech Almighty God to bless 
your Majesty with all prosperity. 

"Your Majesty's good friend, Oliver, P. 

" Given at our Palace at Westminster, this 25tli of May, in the year 
of our Lord 1655. 



" Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, 
&;c. to the most Noble the Consuls and Senators of 
the City of Geneva. 

" We have before made known to your Lordships 
our excessive sorrow for the heavy and unheard-of calam- 
ities of the Protestants inhabiting the Valleys of Pie- 
mont, whom the Duke of Savoy persecutes with so much 
cruelty, but that we made it our business that you should 
at the same time understand, that we are not onely affect- 
ed with the multitude of their sufferings, but are using the 
utmost of our endeavours to relieve and comfort 'em in 
their distresses. To that purpose we have taken care for 
a gathering of alms to be made throughout this whole 
Republick ; which upon good grounds we expect will be 
such, as will demonstrate the affection of this nation 
toward their brethren labouring under the burthen of 
such horrid inhumanities ; and that as the communion of 
religion is the same between both people, so the sense of 
their calamities is no less the same. In the mean time, 
while the collections of the money go forward, which in 
regard they will require some time to accomplish, and for 



188 LIFE OF MILTON. 

that the wants and necessities of those deplorable people 
will admit of no delay, we thought it requisite to remit be- 
forehand two thousand pounds of the value of England, 
with all possible speed to be distributed among such as 
shall be judged to be most in present need of comfort and 
succour. Now in regard we are not ignorant how deeply 
the miseries and wrongs of those most innocent people 
have affected yourselves, and that you will not think amiss 
of any labour or pains where you can be assisting to their 
relief, we made no scruple to commit the paying and dis- 
tributing this sum of money to your care ; and to give ye 
this farther trouble, that according to your wonted piety 
and prudence, you would take care that the said money 
may be distributed equally to the most necessitous, to the 
end, that though the sum be small, yet there may be some- 
thing to refresh and revive the most poor and needy, till 
we can afford 'em a more plentiful supply. And thus, 
not making any doubt but you will take in good part the 
trouble imposed upon ye, we beseech Almighty God to 
stir up the hearts of all his people professing the orthodox 
religion, to resolve upon the common defence of them- 
selves, and the mutual assistance of each other against 
their imbittered and most implacable enemies : in the 
prosecution of which we should rejoyce that our helping 
hand might be any way serviceable to the church. — 
Farewel. 

" Fifteen hundred younds of the foresaid two thousand 
will he remitted by Gerard Hencii from Paris, and the 
other five hundred pounds will be taken care of by letters 
from the Lord Stoup. 

"June 8, 1655.'^ 



LIFE OF MILTON. 189 

*' To the Evangelic Cities of Switzerland. 

" In what condition your affairs are, which is not 
the best, we are abundantly informed, as well by your 
public acts transmitted to us by our agent at Geneva, as 
also by your letters from Zurich, bearing date the 21th 
of December, Whereby, although we are sorry to find 
your peace, and such a lasting league of confederacy 
broken ; nevertheless, since it appears to have happened 
through no fault of yours, we are in hopes that the iniquity 
and perverseness of your adversaries are contriving new 
occasions for ye to make known your long-ago experi- 
enced fortitude and resolution in defence of the Evangel- 
ick faith. For as for those of the Canton of Schwits, who 
account it a capital crime for any person to embrace our 
religion, what they are might and main designing, and 
whose instigations have incensed 'em to resolutions of 
hostility against the orthodox religion, nobody can be ig- 
norant, who has not yet forgot that most detestable slaugh- 
ter of our brethren in Piemont, Wherefore, most beloved 
friends, what you were always wont to be, with God's as- 
sistance still continue, magnanimous and resolute ; suffer 
not your privileges, your confederacies, the liberty of 
your consciences, your religion itself, to be trampled 
under foot by the worshippers of idols ; and so prepare 
yourselves, that you may not seem to be the defenders 
onely of your own freedom and safety, but be ready like- 
wise to aid and succour, as far as in you lies, your neigh- 
boring brethren, more especially those most deplorable 
Piedmontois ; as being certainly convinced of this, that a 
passage was lately intended to have bin opened over their 
slaughtered bodies to your sides. As for our part, be as- 
sured, that we are no less anxious and solicitous for your 
welfare and prosperity, than if this conflagration had 
17* 



190 LIFE OF MILTON. 

broken forth in our Republick ; or as if the axes of the 
Schwits.Cantons had bin sharpened for our necks, or that 
their swords had bin drawn against our breasts, as indeed 
they were against the i)Osoms of all the Reformed. — 
Therefore, so soon as we were informed of the condition 
of your affairs, and the obstinate animosities of your ene- 
mies, advising with some sincere and honest persons, to- 
gether with some ministers of the church most eminent 
for their piety, about sending to your assistance such suc- 
cour as the present posture of our aftairs would permit, 
we came to those results, which our envoy Pell will im- 
part to your consideration. In the mean time, we cease 
not to implore tlie blessing of the Almighty upon all your 
counsels, and the protection of your most just cause as 
well in war as in peace. 

" Your Lordships and Worships most afTectionate, Oliver, Procector 
of the Commonweahh of Ekgland, &c. 

" Westminster, Jan. 1655." 



" Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, 
&c, to the most Serene Prince Charles Gustavus, 
by the Grace of God King of the Swedes, Goths, and 
Vandals, Great Prince of Finland, &c. 

" Most Serene King, 

" Seeing it is a thing well known to all men, that 
there ought to be a communication of concerns among 
friends, whether in prosperity or adversity ; it cannot be 
but most grateful to us, that your Majesty should vouch- 
safe to impart unto us by your letters the most pleasing 
and delightful part of your friendship, which is your joy. 
In regard it is a mark of singular civility, and truly royal, 



LIFE OF MILTON. Wl 

as not to live onely to a man's self, so neither to rejoyce 
alone, unless he be sensible that his friends and confede- 
rates partake of his gladness. Certainly then, we have 
reason to rejoyce for the birth of a young prince born to 
such an excellent king, and sent into the world to be the 
heir of his father's glory and Vertue ; and this at such a 
lucky season, that we have no less cause to congratulate 
the royal parent with the memorable omen that befel the 
famous Philip of Macedon, who at the same time received 
the tydings of Alexander's birth, and the conquest of the 
Illyrians. For we make no question, but the wresting of 
the kingdom of Poland from Papal subjection, as it were a 
horn dismembered from the head of the Beast, and the 
peace so much desired by all good men, concluded with 
the Duke of Brandenhurgh, will be most highly conducing 
to the tranquillity and advantage of the church. Heaven 
grant a conclusion correspondent to such signal begin- 
nings ; and may the son be like the father in vertue, piety, 
and renown, obtained by great atchievments. Which is 
that we wish may luckily come to pass, and which we beg 
of the Almighty, so propitious hitherto to your affairs. 

" Your Majesty's most affectionate Oliver, Protector of the Com- 
monwealth of England, &c. 

" Westminster, February, 1655." 



" Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, 
djc, to the most High and Mighty Lords, the States of 
the United Provinces. 

" Most High and Mighty Lords, our dear Friends 
AND Confederates. 

" We make no doubt, but that all men will bear 
us this testimony, That no considerations, in contracting 



19Q 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



foreign alliances, ever swayed us beyond those of defend- 
ing the truths of religion, or that we accounted any thing 
more sacred, than to unite the minds of all the friends 
and protectors of the Protestants, and of all others, who 
at least were not their enemies. Whence it comes to 
pass, that we are touched with so much the more grief 
of mind, to hear that the Protestant princes and cities, 
whom it so much behoves to live in friendship and con- 
cord together, should begin to be so jealous of each 
other, and so ill disposed to mutual affection ; more espe- 
cially, that your lordships and the king of Sweden, then 
whom the orthodox faith has not more magnanimous and 
couragious defenders, nor our republick confederates more 
strictly conjoyned in interests, should seem to remit of 
your confidence in each other ; or rather, that there 
should appear some too signs of tottering friendship and 
growing discord between ye. What the causes are, and 
what progress this alienation of your affection has made, 
we protest ourselves to be altogether ignorant. Howe- 
ver, we cannot but conceive an extraordinary trouble of 
mind for these beginnings of the least dissention arisen 
among brethren, which infallibly must greatly endanger 
the Protestant interests. Which if they should gather 
strength, how prejudicial it would prove to the Protestant 
churches, what an occasion of triumph it would afford 
our enemies, and more especially the Spaniards, cannot 
be unknown to your prudence, and most industrious ex- 
perience of affairs. As for the Spaniards, it has already 
so enlivened their confidence, and raised their courage, 
that they made no scruple by their embassador residing 
in your territories, boldly to obtrude their counsels upon 
your lordships, and that in reference to the highest con. 
cerns of your republick ; presuming partly with threats 
of renewing the war, to terrific, and partly with a false 



LIFE OF MILTON. 193 

prospect of advantage, to solicit your lordships to forsake 
your ancient and most faithful friends the English, French, 
and Danes, and enter into a strict confederacy with your 
old enemy and once your domineering tyrant, now seem- 
ingly attoned, but what is most to be feared, only at pre- 
sent treacherously fawning to advance his own designs. 
Certainly he, who of an inveterate enemy, lays hold of 
so slight an occasion of a sudden to become your coun- 
sellor, what is it that he would not take upon him ? 
Where would his insolency stop, if once he could but see 
with his eyes, what now he onely ruminates and labours in 
his thoughts ; that is to say, division and a civil war 
among the Protestants ? We are not ignorant, that your 
lordships, out of your deep wisdom, frequently revolve in 
your minds what the posture of all Europe is, and what 
more especially the condition of the Protestants : that 
the cantons of Switzerland adhering to the orthodox faith, 
are in daily expectation of new troubles to be raised by 
their countryemen embracing the popish ceremonies ; 
scarcely recovered from that war which for the sake of 
religion was kindled and blown up by the Spaniards, who 
supplied their enemies both with commanders and 
money : that the councils of the Spaniards are still con- 
triving to continue the slaughter and destruction of the 
Piemontois, which was cruelly put in execution the last 
year : that the Protestants under the jurisdiction of the 
emperor are most grievously harassed, having much ado 
to keep possession of their native homes : that the king 
of Sweden, whom God, as we hope, has raised up to be a 
most stout defender of the orthodox faith, is at present 
waging with all the force of his kingdom a doubtful and 
bloody war with the most potent enemies of the reformed 
religion ; that your own provinces are threatened with 
hostile confederacies of the princes your neighbours^ 



194 LIFE OF MILTON. 

headed by the Spaniards; and lastly, that we ourselves 
are busied in a war proclaimed against the king of Spain. 
In this posture of affairs, if any contest should happen 
between Vour lordships and the king of Sweden, how 
miserable would be the condition of all the reformed 
churches over all Europe, exposed to the cruelty and 
fury of unsanctified enemies. These cares not slightly 
seize us ; and we hope your sentiments to be the same ; 
and that out of your continued zeal for the common cause 
of the Protestants, and to the end the present peace be- 
tween brethren professing the same faith, the same hope 
of eternity, may be preserved inviolable, your lordships 
will accommodate your counsels to these considerations, 
which are to be preferred before all others ; and that you 
will leave nothing neglected that may conduce to the es- 
tablishing tranquillity and union between your lordships 
and the king of Sweden. Wherein if we can any way be 
useful, as far as our authority, and the favour you bear 
us will sway with your lordships, we freely offer our ut- 
most assistance, prepared in like manner to be no less 
serviceable to the king of Sweden, to whom we design a 
speedy embassie, to the end we may declare our senti- 
ments at large concerning these matters. We hope, 
moreover, that God will bend your minds on both sides 
to moderate counsels, and so restrain your animosities, 
that no provocation may be given either by the one or 
the other, to fester your differences to extremity : but that 
on the other side both parties will remove whatever may 
give offence, or occasion of jealousie to the other. 
Which if you shall vouchsafe to do, you will disappoint 
your enemies, prove the consolation of your friends, and 
in the best manner provide for the welfare of your repub- 
lick. And this we beseech you to be fully convinced of, 
that we shall use our utmost care to make appear, upoiv 



LIFE OF MILTON. 195 

all occasions, our extraordinary affection and good-will 
to the states of the United Provinces, And so we most 
earnestly implore the Almighty God to perpetuate his 
blessings of peace, wealth, and liberty upon your repub- 
lick, but above all things to preserve it always flourish- 
ing in the love of the christian faith, and the true worship 
of his name. 

" Your high and mightinesses most affectionate, Oliver, Protector 
of the Commonwealth of England, &c. 

" Prom our Palace at Westminster, August, 1656." 



"Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, 
&c. to the most Serene Prince Charles Gustavus, 
king of the Swedes, Goths, and Vandals, &c. 

*'MosT Serene King, our dearest Friend and Con- 
federate. 

" Being assured of your Majesty's concurrence 
both in thoughts and counsels, for the defence of the Pro- 
testant faith against the enemies of it, if ever, now at this 
time, most dangerously vexatious, though we cannot but 
rejoyce at your prosperous successes, and the daily tidings 
of your victories, yet on the other side we cannot but be 
as deeply afflicted to meet with one thing that disturbs 
and interrupts our joy ; we mean, the bad news, intermix- 
ed with so many welcome tydings, that the ancient friend- 
ship between your majesty, and the States of the United 
Provinces, looks with a dubious aspect, and that the mis- 
chief is exasperated to that heighth, especially in the Bal- 
tick Sea, as seems to bode an unhappy rupture. We con- 
fess ourselves ignorant of the causes ; but we too easily 
foresee that the events, which God avert, will be fatal to 



196 LIFE OF MILTON. 

the interests of the Protestants. And therefore, as well 
in respect to that most strict alliance between us and your 
Majesty, as out of that affection and love to the reformed 
religion, by which we all of us ought chiefly to be swai'd, 
we thought it our duty, as we have most earnestly ex- 
horted the States of the United Provinces to peace and 
moderation, so now to perswade your Majesty to the same. 
The Protestants have enemies every where enow and to 
spare, inflamed with inexorable revenge ; they never were 
known to have conspired more perniciously to our de- 
struction, witness the valleys o£ Piemont, still reaking with 
the blood and slaughter of the miserable ; witness Austria, 
lately turmoiled with the emperor's Edicts and proscrip- 
tions ; witness Switzerland ; but to what purpose is it in 
many words to call back the bitter lamentations and re- 
membrance of so many calamities ? Who so ignorant, as 
not to know that the counsels of the Spaniards and the 
Roman Pontiff, for these two years have filled all these 
places with conflagrations, slaughter, and vexation of the 
orthodox. If to these mischiefs there should happen an 
access of dissention among Protestant brethren, more es- 
pecially between two potent states, upon whose courage, 
wealth, and fortitude, so far as human strength may be 
relied upon, the support and hopes of all the reformed 
churches depend, of necessity the Protestant religion 
must be in great jeopardy, if not upon the brink of de- 
struction. On the other side, if the whole Protestant 
name would but observe perpetual peace among them- 
selves with that same brotherly union as becomes their 
profession, there would be no occasion to fear what all the 
artifices or puissance of our enemies could do to hurt us, 
which our fraternal concord and harmony alone would 
easily repel and frustrate. And therefore we most ear- 
nestly request and beseech your majesty to harbour in 



LIFE OF MILTON. 197 

your mind propitious thoughts of peace, and inclinations 
ready bent to repair the breaches of your pristin friend, 
ship with the United Provinces, if in any part it may have 
accidentally suffered the decays of mistakes or miscon- 
struction. If there be any thing wherein our labour, our 
fidelity and diligence may be useful toward this compo- 
sure, we offer and devote all to j^our service. And may 
the God of Heaven favour and prosper your noble and 
pious resolutions, which together with all felicity, and a 
perpetual course of victory, we cordially wish to your 
Majesty. 

'* Your Majesty's most affectionate, Oliver, Protector of the 
Commonwealth of England, &c. 

" jFrorn. our Palace at Westminster, Au^-iist, 1656." 



" Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, 
<Sjc. To the most Serene and Potent Prince, Frede- 
rick III. king of Danemark, Norway, the Vandals^ 
and Goths; Duke of Sleswich, Holsatia, Storma- 
TiA, and DiTHMARSH ; Count in Oldenburgh and Del- 
menhorst, &;c. 

^''- Most Serene and Potent King, our dearest Friend 
AND Confederate, 

u \Ye received your Majesty's letters, dated the 
iOth of Fehruary, from Copenhagen, by the most worthy 
Simon de Pitkum, your Majesty's agent here residing. — 
Which when we have perused, the demonstrations of your 
Majesty's good-will towards us, and the importance of the 
matter concerning which you write, affected us to that 
degree, that we designed forthwith to send to your Ma- 
jesty some person, who being furnished with ample in- 
structions from us, might more at large declare to your 
18 



198 LIFE OF MILTON. 

Majesty our counsels in that affair. And though we hate 
still the same resolutions, yet hitherto we have ^ot been 
at leisure to think of a person proper to be entrusted with 
those commands, which the weight of the matter requires ; 
though in a short time we hope to be more at liberty. In 
the mean while, we thought it not convenient any longer 
to delay the letting your Majesty understand, that the 
present condition of affairs in Europe has employed the 
greatest part of our care and thoughts; while for some 
years, to our great grief, we have beheld the Protestant 
princes and supream magistrates of the Reformed repub- 
licks (whom it rather behoves, as being engaged by the 
common tye of religion and safety, to combine and study 
all the ways imaginable conducing to mutual defence) 
more and more at weakening variance among themselves, 
and jealous of each other's actions and designs ; putting 
their friends in fear, their enemies in hope, that the posture 
of affairs bodes rather enmity and discord, then a firm 
agreement of mind to defend and assist each other. And 
this solicitude has fixed itself so much the deeper in our 
thoughts, in regard there seems to appear some sparkles 
of jealousy between your Majesty and the king of Sweden ; 
at least that there is not that conjunction of affections, 
which our love and good-will in general toward the or- 
thodox religion so importunately requires ; your Majesty, 
perhaps, suspecting that the trade of your dominions will 
be prejudiced by the king of Sweden ; and on the other 
side, the king of Sweden being jealous, that by your means 
the war, which he now wages, is made more difficult, and 
that you oppose him in his contracting those alliances 
which he seeks. 'Tis not unknov/n to your Majesty, so 
eminent for your profound wisdom, how great the danger 
is that threatens the Protestant religion, should such sus- 
picions long continue between two such potent monarchs ; 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



J99 



teore especially, which God avert, if any symptom of hos- 
tility should break forth. However it be, for our parts, 
as we have earnestly exhorted the king of Sweden and the 
States of the United Provinces to peace, and moderate 
counsels (and are beyond expression glad to behold peace 
and concord renewed between them ; for that the heads 
of that league are transmitted to us by their lordships, the 
states general) so we thought it our duty, and chiefly be- 
coming our friendship, not to conceal from your Majesty 
what our sentiments are concerning these matters, (more 
especially being so affectionately invited so to do by your 
Majesty's most friendly letters ; which we look upon, and 
embrace, as a most singular testimony of your good-will 
toward us,) but to lay before your eyes, how great a ne- 
cessity Divine Providence has imposed upon us all, that 
profess the Protestant Religion, to study peace among 
ourselves, and that chiefly at this time, when our most 
embittered enemies seem to have on every side conspired 
our destruction. There's no necessity of calling to 
remembrance the valleys of Piemont still besmeared with 
the blood and slaughter of the miserable inhabitants ; nor 
Austria, tormented at the same time with the emperor's 
decrees and proscriptions ; nor the impetuous onsets of 
the popish upon the Protestant Switzers. Who can be ig- 
norant, that the artifices and machinations of the Spaniards 
for some years last past, have filled all these places with 
the confused and blended havock of fire and sword ! To 
which unfortunate pile of miseries, if once the reformed 
brethren should come to add their own dissentions among 
themselves, and more especially two such potent mon- 
archs, the chiefest part of our strength, and among whom 
so large a provision of the Protestant security and puis- 
sance lies stored and hoarded up against times of dan- 
ger, most certainly the interests of the Protestants must 



200 LIFE OF MILTO]V. 

go to ruine, and suffer a total and irrecoverable eclipse,, 
On the other side, if peace continue firmly fixed between 
two such powerful neighbours, and the rest of the ortho- 
dox princes ; if we vvould but make it our main study to 
abide in brotherly concord, there would be no cause, by 
God's assistance, to fear neither the force nor subtilty of 
our enemies ; all whose endeavours, and laborious toils, 
our union alone would be able to dissipate and frustrate. 
Nor do we question, but that your Majesty, as you are 
freely willing, so your willingness will be constant in con= 
tributing your utmost assistance to procure this blessed 
peace. To which purpose, we shall be most ready to com- 
municate, and join our counsels with your Majesty ; pro- 
fessing a real and cordial friendship, and not only deter- 
mined inviolably to observe the amity so auspiciously con- 
tracted between us, but as God shall enable us, to bind 
our present alliance with a more strict and fraternal bond 
In the mean time, the same eternal God grant all things 
prosperous and successful to your Majesty. 

" Your Majesty's most closely united by Friendship^ Alliance ana 
Good-willj OtiYEK, Protector of the Commonwealth of England. 
&c. 

" From our Court at Whitehall^ December, 1656.'- 



^' Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of Englaxi^. 
dec. To the most Serene and illustrious Prince and 
Lord, the Lord William, Lantgrave of Hess, Prince 
of Herefeldt, Count in Cutzenellebogen, Decia 

LiGENHAIN, WiDDA, and SCHAUNBURG, (fec. 

'' Most Serene Prince, 

" We had returned an answer to your letters, sent 
us now near a twelvemonth since, for which we beg voui 



LIFE OF MILTON. 201 

highnesses pardon, had not many, and those the most 
important affairs of the repubhek under our care, con- 
strained us to this unwilHng silence. For what letters 
could be more grateful to us, than those which are written 
from a most religious prince, descended from religious 
ancestors, in order to settle the peace of religion, and the 
harmony of the church ? Which letters attribute to us 
the same inclinations, the same zeal to promote the peace 
of Christendom, not only in your own, but in the opinion 
and judgment of almost all the christian world, and which 
we are most highly glad to find so universally ascribed to 
ourselves. And how far our endeavours have been sig- 
nal formerly throughout these three kingdoms, and what 
we have effected by our exhortations, by our sufferings, 
by our conduct, but chiefly by Divine assistance, the great- 
est part of our people both well know, and are sensible of, 
in a deep tranquillity of their consciences. The same 
peace we have wished to the churches of Germany^ whose 
dissentions have been too sharp, and of too, too long endu- 
rance ; and by our agent Diiry, for many years in vain 
endeavouring the same reconciliation, we have cordially 
offered whatever might conduce on our part to the same 
purpose. We still persevere in the same determination, 
and wish the same fraternal charity one among another, 
to those churches. But how difficult a task it is to settle 
peace among those sons of peace, as they give out them- 
selves to be, to our extream grief, we more than abun- 
dantly understand. For, that the reformed, and those of 
the Augustan confession, should cement together in a 
communion of one church, is hardly ever to be expected : 
'Tis impossible by force to prohibit either from defending 
their opinions, whether in private disputes or by publick 
writings. For force can never consist with ecclesiastical 
tranquillity. This only were to be wished, that they who 
.18* 



202 LIFE OF MILTONo 

differ, would suffer themselves to be entreated, that they 
would disagree more civilly and with more moderation ; 
and notwithstanding their disputes, love one another ; 
not embittered against each other as enemies, but as 
brethren, dissenting onely in trifles, though in the funda- 
mentals of faith most cordially agreeing. With inculca- 
ting and perswading these things, we shall never be wea- 
ried ; beyond that, there is nothing allowed to human 
force or counsels : God will accomplish his own work in 
his own time. In the mean while, you, most Serene 
Prince, have left behind ye a noble testimony of your 
affection to the churches, an eternal monument becoming 
the vertue of your ancestors, and an exemplar worthy to 
be followed by all princes. It only then remains for us 
to implore the merciful and great God to crown your high- 
ness with all the prosperity in other things which you can 
wish for ; but not to change your mind, than which you 
cannot have a better, since a better cannot be, nor more 
piously devoted to his glory. 

•'< Westminster, March; 1656.'- 



" Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, 
&c. To the most Serene and Potent Prince, Charles 
GusTAvrs, king of the Swedes, Goths, and Vandals, 
&c. 

*' Most Serene and Potent King, our dearest Friend 
AND Confederate, 

" The most honourable William Jepson, Collonel 
of Horse, and a senator in our parliament, who will have 
the honour to deliver these letters to your Majesty, will 
make known to your Majesty, with what disturbance and 



LIFE OF MILTON. 203 

grief of mind we received the news of the fatal war broke 
out between your Majesty and the king o^ DanemarJc, and 
how much it is our cordial and real endeavour, not to ne- 
glect any labour or duty of ours, as far as God enables us, 
that some speedy remedy may be applied to this growing 
mischief, and those calamities averted, which of necessi- 
ty this war will bring upon the common cause of religion ; 
more especially at this time, now that our adversaries 
unite their forces and pernicious counsels against the 
profession and professors of the orthodox faith. These 
and some other considerations of great importance to the 
benefit and publick interests of both nations, have induced 
us to send this gentleman to your Majesty under the cha- 
racter of our extraordinary envoy. Whom we therefore 
desire your Majesty kindly to receive, and to give credit 
to him in all things which he shall have to impart to your 
Majesty in our name ; as being a person in whose fidelity 
and prudence we very much confide. We also farther 
request, that your Majesty will be pleased fully to assure 
yourself of our good-will and most undoubted zeal, as well 
toward your Majesty, as for the prosperity of your afifairs 
Of which we shall be readily prepared with all imagina- 
ble willingness of mind to give unquestionable testimonies 
upon all occasions, 

"Your Majesty's Friend, and most strictly co^uniled Confederate^ 
Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, &c, 

"From OUT Court at Westminster^ August, 1656," 



204 WFE OF MILTON. 

*• Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, 
&c. To the most Serene Prince, Frederick, heir of 
NoinvAY5Duke of Sleswick,Holsatix\, and Ditmarshj 
Count in Oldenburgh and Del>ienhorst. 

'^' Most Serene Prince our dearest Friend, 

" Collonel William Jepson, a person truly noble 
in his countrey, and a senator in our parlament, is sent by 
us as our envoy extraordinary to the most Serene King 
of Sweden ; and may it prove happy and prosperous for 
the common peace and interests of Christendome. We 
have given him instructions among other things, that in 
his journey, after he has kissed your Serenities hands in 
our name, and declared our former good-will and constant 
zeal for your welfare, to request of your Serenity also, 
that being guarded with your authority, he may travel 
with safety and convenience through your territories. By 
which kind act of civility your highness will in a greater 
measure oblige us to returns of answerable kindness 

^'-Frorti our Court at Westminster, August. 1657," 



*' Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England, 
&c. To the most Serene Prince, the Lord Frederick 
William, Marquis of Brandenburgh, &;c. 

" Most Serene Prince, our most dear Friend and 
Confederate. 

" By our last letters to your highness, either al- 
ready or shortly to be delivered by our embassador Wih 
Ham Jepson, we have imparted the substance of our em- 



LIFE OF MILTONo 205 

bassy to your highness, which we could not do without 
some mention of your great vertues, and demonstration of 
our own good will and affection. Nevertheless, that we 
may not seem too superficially to have glided over your 
transcendant deservings of the Protestant interests, we 
thought it proper to resume the same subject, and pay 
our respect and veneration, not more wilHngly, or with a 
greater fervency of mind, but somewhat more at large, to 
your highness. And truly most deservedly, when daily 
information reaches our eyes, that your faith and con- 
science, by all manner of artifices tempted and assaiiedj 
by all manner of arts and devices solicited, yet cannot be 
shaken, or by any violence be rent from your friendship 
and alliance with a most magnanimous Prince and your 
Confederate : and this, when the affairs of the Swedes 
are now reduced to that condition, that in adhering to 
their alliance, 'tis manifest that your highness rather con- 
suits the common cause of the Reformed religion, then 
your own advantage. And when your highness is almost 
surrounded and besieged by enemies, either privately lurk- 
ing or almost at your gates ; yet such is your constancy 
and resolution of mind, such your conduct and prowess 
becoming a great general, that the burthen and massy 
bulk of the whole affair, and the event of this important 
war, seems to rest and depend upon your sole determina- 
tion. Wherefore your highness has no reason to ques- 
tion but that you may rely upon our friendship and un- 
feigned affection ; who should think ourselves worthy to 
be forsaken of all men's good word, should we seem 
careless in the least of your unblemished fidelity, your 
constancy, and the rest of your applauded vertues, or 
should we pay less respect to your highness upon the 
common score of religion. As to those matters pro- 
pounded by the most accomplished John Frederic Schkver^ 



206 LIFE OP MILTON. 

your counsellor and agent here residing, if hitherto we 
could not return an answer, such as we desired to do, 
though with all assiduity and diligence laboured by your 
agent ; we intreat your highness to impute it to the pre- 
sent condition of our affairs, and to be assured, that there 
is nothing which we account more sacred, or more ear- 
nestly desire, than to be servicable and assisting to your 
interests, so bound up with the cause of religion. In the 
mean time we beseech the God of mercy and power, that 
so signal a prowess and fortitude may never languish or 
be oppressed, nor be deprived the fruit and due applause 
of all your pious undertakings. 

" Your Highness's most affectionate, Oliver, Protector of the Com- 
monwealth of En gland, &c. 

'''From our Court at Westminster, September, 1657." 



" To the most Serene and Potent Prince Lewis, king of 
France. 

"^ Most Serene and Potent King, and mos^t x\ugust 
Friend and Confederate. 

" Your Majesty may call to mind, that at the 
same time, when the renewing the league between us 
was in agitation, and no less auspiciously concluded, as 
the many advantages from thence accrewing to both na- 
tions, and the many annoyances thence attending the 
common enemy, sufficiently testify, those dreadful butch- 
eries befel the Piemontois, and that we recommended 
with great fervency of mind and compassion, their cause 



LIFE OF MILTON. 207 

biiali sides forsaken and afflicted, to your commiseration 
and Protection. Nor do we believe, that your Majesty, 
of yourself, was wanting in a duty so pious, that we may 
not say, beseeming common humanity, as far as your au- 
thority, and the veneration due to your person, could pre- 
vail with the duke of Savoy, Certain we are, that nei- 
ther ourselves, nor many other princes and cities were 
wanting in our performances, by the interposition of em- 
bassies, letters, and intreaties. After a most bloody butch- 
ery of both sexes and all ages, at length peace was granted, 
or rather a certain clandestine hostility covered over with 
the name of peace. The conditions of peace were 
agreed in your town of Pignerol; severe and hard ; but 
such, as those miserable and indigent creatures, after 
they had suffered all that could be endured that was op- 
pressive and barbarous, would have been glad of, had they 
been but observed, as hard and unjust as they were. 
But by false constructions, and various evasions, the as- 
surances of all these articles are eluded and violated : 
many are thrust out from their ancient abodes ; many are 
forbid the exercise of their religion ; new tributes are ex- 
acted ; a new citadel is imposed upon them ; from 
v/hence the soldiers frequently making excursions, either 
plunder or murder all they meet. Add to all this, that 
new levies are privately preparing against them ; and all 
that embrace the Protestant religion are commanded to 
depart by a prefixed day; so that all things seems to 
threaten the utter extirmination of those deplorable wretch- 
es, whom the former massaker spared. Which I most 
earnestly beseech and conjure ye, most christian King, 
by that RIGHT HAND, which signed the league and 
friendship between us, by that same goodly ornament of 
your title of MOST CHRISTIAN, by no means to suf- 
fer ; nor to permit such liberty of rage and fury uncon- 



208 LIFE OF MILTON. 

trouled, we will not say, in any prince, (for certainly sucu 
barbarous severity could never enter the breast of any 
prince, much less so tender in years, nor into the female 
thoughts of his mother,) but in those sanctified cut-throats, 
who professing themselves to be the servants and disci- 
ples of our Saviour Christ, who came into this world to 
save sinners, abuse his meek and peaceful name and 
precepts to the most cruel slaughter of the innocent. 
Rescue you that are able, in your towring station worthy 
to be able, rescue so many suppliants prostrate at your 
fee I, from the hands of ruffians, who lately drunk with 
blood, again thirst after it, and think it their safest way to 
throw the odium of their cruelty upon princes. But as 
for you, great prince, suffer not, while you reign, your ti- 
tles, nor the confines of your kingdom, to be contamina- 
ted with this same heaven-offending scandal, nor the 
peaceful gospel of Christ to be defiled with such abomin- 
able cruelty. Remember that they submitted themselves 
to your grandfather Henry, most friendly to the Protest- 
ants, when the victorious Lesdiguieres pursued the re- 
treating Savoyard o're the Alpes. There is also an in- 
strument of that submission registered among the publick 
acts of your kingdom, wherein it is excepted and provi- 
ded among other things : That from that time forward the 
Piemonlois should not be delivered over into the power of 
any ruler, but upon the same conditions upon which your 
invincible grandfather received them into his protection 
This protection of your grandfather, these suppliants now 
implore from you as grandchild. 'Tis your Majesty's par 
to whom those people now belong, to give 'em that protec 
tion which they have chosen, by some exchange of habita 
tion, if they desire it, and it may be done : or if that be a la 
hour too difficult, at least to succour 'em with your patron 
age, your commiseration, and your admittance into sane 



LIFE OF MILTON. 209 

tuary. And there are some reasons of state to encou- 
rage your Majesty not to refuse the Piemontois a safe asy- 
lum in your kingdom; but I am unwilling that you, so great 
king, should be induced to the defence and succour of 
the miserable by any other arguments than those of your 
ancestor's pledged faith, yoiir own piety, royal benignity 
and magnanimity. Thus the immaculate and intire glory 
of a most egregious act will be your own, and you will 
find the Father of Mercy, and his Son, King Christ, whose 
name and doctrine you have vindicated from nefarious in- 
humanity, so much the more favourable and propitious 
to your Majesty, all your days. The God of mercy and 
power infuse into your Majesty's heart a resolution to de- 
fend and save so many innocent Christians, and main- 
tain your own honour. 
" Westminster^ 3Jay, 1658." 



'*To the Evangelick Cities of the Switzers. 

"Illustrious and most noble Lords our dearest 
Friends, 

" How heavy and intolerable the sufferings of 
the Piemontois, your most afflicted neighbours, have bin, 
and how unmercifully they have been dealt with by their 
own prince, for the sake of their religion, by reason of the 
felness of the cruelties, we almost tremble to remember, 
and thought it superfluous to put you in mind of those 
things, which are much better known to your Lordships. 
We have also seen copies of the letters, which your am- 
bassadors, promoters and witnesses of the peace, conclu- 
ded at Pignerol, wrote to the duke oi^ Savoy, and the pres- 
ident of his council at Turin ; wherein they set forth, and 
make it out, that all the conditions of the said peace are 

19 



210 LIFE OF 3riLTOX. 

broken, and were rather a snare then a security to those 
miserable people. Which violation continued from the 
conclusion of the peace to this very moment, and still 
growing more heavy every day then other : unless they 
patiently endure, unless they lay themselves down to be 
trampled under foot, plashed 'like mortar, or abjure their 
religion, the same calamities, the same slaughters, hang 
over their heads, which three years since, made such a 
dreadful havock of them, their wives and children ; and 
which, if it must be undergone once more, will certainly 
prove the utter extirpation of their whole race. What 
shall such miserable creatures do ? In whose behalf no 
intercession will avail, to whom no breathing time is al- 
lowed, nor any certain place of refuge. They have to 
do with wild beasts, or furies rather, upon whom the re- 
membrance of their former murders has wrought no com- 
passion upon their countrymen, no sense of humanity, 
nor satiated their ravenous hunger after blood. Most 
certainly these things are not to be endured, if we desire 
the safety of our brethren the Piemoniois, most ancient 
professors of the orthodox faith, or the welfare of our re- 
ligion itself. As for ourselves, so far remote, we have 
not been wanting to assist 'em as far as in us lay, nor 
shall we cease our future aid. But you, who not only lie 
so near adjoining, as to behold the butcheries, and hear 
the outcries and shrieks of the distressed, but are also 
next exposed to the fury of the same enemies ; consider 
for the sake of the immortal God, and that in time, what 
it behoves ye now to do : consult your prudence, your 
piety, and your fortitude, what succour, what relief and 
safeguard you are able, and are bound to afford your 
neighbours and brethren, who must else undoubtedly and 
speedily perish. Certainly the same religion is the cause, 
why the same enemies seek also your perdition ; why, at 



LIFE OF MILTOTC. 211 

the same time the last year, they meditated your ruin, 
by intestine broiles among yourselves. It seems to be 
only in your power, next under God, to prevent the extir- 
pation of this most ancient Scien of the purer religion, in 
these remainders of the primitive believers ; whose pre- 
servation now reduced to the very brink of utter ruin, if 
you neglect, beware that the next turn be not your own. 
These admonitions, while we give ye freely, and out of 
brotherly love, we are not quite as yet cast down : for what 
lies only in our power so far distant, as we have hitherto 
so shall we still employ our utmost endeavours, not only 
to procure the safety of our brethren upon the precipice of 
danger, but also to relieve their wants. May the Al- 
mighty God vouchsafe to both of us that peace and tran- 
quillity at home, that settlement of times and affairs, that 
we may be able to employ all our wealth and force, all 
our studies and counsels in the defence of his church 
against the rage and fury of her enemies. 

" From OUT Court at Whitehall, May, 1658." 



" To his Eminency Cardinal Mazarin, 

" Most Eminent Lord, 

" The late most grievous cruelties, and most 
bloody slaughters perpetrated upon the inhabitants of the 
valleys oi Piemont, within the duke of Savoy^s dominions, 
occasioned the writing of the inclosed letters to his Ma- 
jesty, and these other to your Eminency. And as we 
make no doubt but that such tyranny, inhumanities, so 
rigorously inflicted upon harmless and indigent people, 



212 LIFE OF MILTON. 

are highly displeasing and offensive to the most Serene 
King ; so we readily persuade ourselves, that what we 
request from his Majesty in behalf of tJiose unfortunate 
creatures, your Eminency will employ your endeavour, 
and your favour to obtain, as an accumulation to our in- 
tercessions. Seeing there is nothing which has acquired 
more good-will and affection to the French nation, among 
all the neighbouring professors of the reformed religion, 
then that liberty and those privileges, which by publick 
acts and Edicts are granted in that kingdom to the Pro- 
testants. And this among others was one main reason, 
w^hy this republick so ardently desired the friendship and 
alhance of the French people. For the settling of which 
we are now treating with the King's embassador, and 
have made those progresses, that the treaty is almost 
brought to a conclusion. Besides that, your Eminency's 
singular benignity and moderation, which in the manage- 
ment of the most important affairs of the kingdom, you 
have always testified to the Protestants of jProfTice, encou- 
rages us to expect what we promise to ourselves from 
5'^our prudence and generosity ; whereby you will not 
only lay the foundations of a stricter alliance between this 
republick and the kingdom of France, but oblige us in par- 
ticular to returns of all good offices of civility and kind- 
ness ; and of this we desire your eminency to rest assured. 

" Your Eminencv^s most Affectionate/* 



LIFE OF MILTOX. 213 

"Richard, Protector of the Commonwealth of Eng- 
land, (fee. To the most Serene and Potent Prince, 
Charles Gustavus, king of the Swedes, Goths, and 
Vandals, &;c. 

" Most Serene and Potent King, our Friend and 
Confederate, 

" We have received two letters from your Ma- 
jesty, the one by your Envoy, the other transmitted to us 
from our Resident, Philip Meadowes, whereby we not 
only understood your Majesties unfained grief for the 
death of our most Serene Father, in expressions setting 
forth the real thoughts of your mind, and how highly 
your Majesty esteemed his prowess and friendship, but 
also what great hopes your Majesty conceived of our- 
selves advanced in his room. And certainly as an accu- 
mulation of paternal honour in deeming us worthy to 
succeed him, nothing more noble, more illustrious, could 
befal us then the judgment of such a prince ; nothing 
more fortunately auspicious could happen to us, at our 
first entrance upon the government, then such a congrat- 
ulator ; nothing lastly that could more vehemently incite 
us to take possession of our Father's vertues, as our law- 
ful inheritance, then the encouragement of so great a 
king. As to what concerns your Majesties interests, 
already under consideration between us, in reference to 
the common cause of the Protestants, we would have 
your Majesty have those thoughts of us, that since we 
came to the helm of this republick, though the condition 
of our affairs be such at present, that they chiefly require 
our utmost diligence, care, and vigilancy at home, yet 
that we hold nothing more sacred, and that there is not 
any thing more determined by us, then as much as in us 
lyes, never to be wanting to the league concluded by our 
19* 



214 LIFE OF MILTO:^. 

Father with your Majesty. To that end, we have taken 
care to send a fleet into the Baltic Sea, with those in- 
structions which our agent, to that purpose empowered 
by US; will communicate to your Majesty ; whom God 
preserve in long safety, and prosper with success in the 
defence of his orthodox religion. 

'^ From our Court at Westminster, October 13, 1658." 



"Richard, Protector, to the most Serene and Potent 
Prince, Charles GusTAvrs, king of the Swedes, 
Goths, and Ya^'dals, &;c. 

" Most Serene and most Potent King, our Friend 
and Confederate, 

" We send to your Majesty, nor could we send 
a present more worthy or more excellent, the truly brave 
and truly noble. Sir George Ascue, Knight, not only famed 
in war, and more especially for his experience in sea 
affairs, approved and tryed in many desperate engage- 
ments, but also endued with singular probity, modesty, 
ingenuity, learning, and for the sweetness of his disposi- 
tion caressed by all men ; and which is the sum of all, 
now desirous to serve under the banners of your Majesty, 
so renowned o're all the world for your mihtary prowess. 
And we would have your Majesty be fully assured, that 
whatsoever high employment you confer upon him, 
wherein fidelity, fortitude, experience, may shine forth in 
their true lusture, you cannot entrust a person more 
faithful, more couragious, nor easily more skilful. More- 
over, as to those things we have given him in charge to 
communicate to your Majesty, we request that he may 
have quick access, and favourable audience, and that 



LIFE OF MILTON. 215 

you will vouchsafe the same credit to him, as to our- 
selves if personnally present : lastly, that you will give 
him that honour, as you shall judge becoming a person 
dignified with his own merits and our recommendation. 
Now God Almighty prosper all your affairs with happy 
success, to his own glory and the safeguard of his ortho^ 
dox church. 

" From our Court at Whitehall, October, 1658." 



The two following Letters, after the deposal of Richard 
Cromwell, were loritten in the name of the Parliament 
restored, 

*' The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, 
&:c. To the most Serene and Potent Prince, Charles 
GusTAVus, King of the Swedes, Goths, and Van- 
DALs, &;c. 

"Most Serene and Potent King, our Dearest 
Friend, 

*' Since it has pleased the most merciful and 
omnipotent God, at whose disposal only the revolutions of 
all kingdoms and republicks are, to restore us to our 
pristin authority, and the supream administration of the 
English affairs, we thought it convenient in the first 
place to make it known to your Majesty, and to signify- 
moreover as well our extraordinary affection to your Ma- 
jesty, so potent a Protestant prince, as also our most fer- 
vent zeal to promote the peace between your Majesty 
and the king of Denmark, another most powerful Protes- 
tant king, not to be reconciled without our assistance and 
the good offices of our affection. Our pleasure there- 



216 LIFE OF MILTO^^ 

fore is, that our extraordinary envoy, Philip Meadowes, 
be continued in the same employment with your Majesty 
with which he has bin hitherto entrusted from this repub- 
lick. To which end, we empower him by these our let- 
ters to make proposals, act and negociate with your Ma- 
jesty, in the same manner as was granted him by his last 
recommendations : and whatsoever he shall transact and 
conclude in our name, we faithfully promise and engage 
by God's assistance, to confirm and ratify. The same 
God long support your Majesty, the pillar and support 
of the Protestant interests. 

" William Lenthal, Speaker of the Parliament of the Common- 
wealth of England. 

" Wtstminster, May 15, 1659." 



The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, 
&;c. To the most Serene Prince, Frederick king of 
Denmark. 

Most serene King and most dear Friend, 

" Seeing it now is come to pass, that by the will 
and pleasure of the most merciful and powerful God, the 
supream moderator of all things, we are restored to our 
pristin place and dignity, in the administration of the 
publick affairs, we thought it convenient in the first place 
that a revolution of this government should not be con- 
cealed from your Majesty's notice, a prince both our 
neighbour and confederate ; and withal, to signify, how 
much we lay to heart your ill success : which you will 
easily perceive by our zeal and diligence, that never shall 
be wanting in us to promote and accomplish a reconci- 
liation between your Majesty and the king of Sweden. 
And therefore we have commanded our extraordinary 



LIFE OF MILTON. 217 

envoy with the most Serene king of Sweden^ Philip 
Medows, to attend your Majesty, in our name, in order to 
these matters, and to impart, propound, act and negotiate 
such things as we have given himin charge to communicate 
to your Majesty : and what credit you shall give to him 
in this his employment, we request your Majesty to be- 
lieve it given to ourselves. God Almighty grant your 
Majesty a happy and joyful deliverance out of all your 
difficulties, and afflicting troubles under which you stand 
so undauntedly supported by your fortitude and magna- 
nimity. 

"William Lenthal, Speaker of the Parliament of the Common- 
wealth of England. 

'^Westminster^ May, 15,1659." 



In the Advertisement " To the Reader," prefixed to 
these " Letters of State," printed in London, 1694, it is 
said, " To question the truth of those transactions to which 
these following Letters have relation, would be a solecism 
which ignorance itself would be ashamed to own. The 
dates, subscriptions, superscriptions, render every thing 
authentick. So that were it only for their character of 
truth which must be allow'd 'em, that alone is sufficient 
to recommend 'em to posterity ; at least, to those who 
may be ambitious to be the English Thuanus's of sue- 
ceeding ages, to whom the verity of these Letters will be 
a careful clue, so far as it reaches, to guide them through 
the labyrinth of forgotten history. Honi soit qui mat y 
pence, ^^ 



218 LIFE OF MILTON. 



CHAPTER VII. 



1660—1674. 

The Parliament having concluded their negociations with 
Charles H. at Breda, Milton" was discharged from his 
office as Latin Secretary ; and in order to secure himself 
from the probable vengeance of the restored king, he left 
his house in Petty France, where he had lived for more 
than eight years, and where he had been visited by all 
the foreigners of note who came to England, by several 
persons of rank, and by the intelligent of every persuasion 
and party. During that period, from 1652 to 1660, he 
had kept up a large correspondence with learned foreign- 
ers, especially with his admirer, Leonardus Philaras, 
who on one occasion, paid him a visit at his house in 
Westminster. 

Milton was now obliged to secrete himself at a friend's 
house in St. Bartholomew's Close for some time after the 
Restoration. In a proclamation at this time, it is said, as 
may be seen in Rennet's Chronicle, p. 189, " the said 
John Milton and John Goodwin, are so fled, or so 
obscure themselves, that no endeavours used for their 
apprehension can take effect, whereby they may be 
brought to legal trial, and deservedly receive condign 
punishment for their treasons and offences." It is re- 
ported, that for the purpose of saving his life, some of 
his friends gave out that he had died, and contrived for 
him a sham funeral ! Thus, while some of his old com- 
panions were expiating their alleged offences by the most 
cruel executions as regicides, and others by assassina- 



LIFE OF 3IILT0N. 2l9 

tions, he was secured from the fury of the raging, pitiless 
storm ; it being thought he had become a resident of that 
house, " where the wicked cease from troubling, and where 
the weary are at rest.^^* 

Some idea of the danger to which, at this time, he was 
exposed, may be seen from the fate to which some of his 
books were condemned. His work, entitled Eiclonoclastis, 
and his Defensio Pro Populo Anglicano, were proscribed 
on the 27th of August, 1661, and several copies of them 
were publicly committed to the flames by the common 
hangman. Impotent malice ! Would not the divine right 
of kings and bishops have preserved the nation, as by a 
charm, from the contagion of these pamphlets? But the 
doctrine of the sovereignty of the people has been thought 
epidemical ever since the times of Charles II. 

The Act of Oblivion was passed on the 30th of August. 
In this, Milton and John Goodwin, both of whom had 
written in justification of the nation, for having put 
Charles I. to death, were included, with the understand- 
ing they were no more to bear any government offices. 
There are differences of opinion as to what particular 
cause Milton owed his escape from the fate to which 
even his noble friend, Sir Harry Vane, «' religious free- 
dom's eldest son," was subjected. Toland says, " Mil- 
ton had many good friends to intercede for him, both in 
the Privy Council and the House of Commons ; nor was 

* One of his historians says : "By this precaution he probably escaped 
the particular prosecution which was at first directed against him. Mr. 
Warton was told by Mr. Tyers, from good authority, that when Milton 
was under prosecution with Goodwin, his friends, to gain time, made a 
mock funeral for hun ; and that when matters were settled in his favour, 
and the affair was known, the king laughed heartily at the trick." This 
circumstance is also I'elated by Cunningham, in his history of Great Britain, 
who says, that Milton "pretended to be dead, and had a public funeral 
procession, and that the king applauded his policy in escaping the punish- 
ment of death by a seasonable shew of dying." 



220 LIFE OF MILTON. 

Charles II. such an enemy to the Muses, as to have re- 
quired his being destroyed ; though some are of opinion 
that he was more obliged to that prince's forgetfulness 
than to his clemency.*" 

The king's pardon having been secured, Milton again 
made his appearance, being resuscited, if not by a na- 
tural, yet by a political resurrection ! Still he was not 
free from peril, as I find that, on some account or other, 
soon after this, he was in custody of the sergeant-at-arms ; 
for on Saturday, the 15th of December, it was ordered by 
the House of Commons, that " Mr. Milton, now in cus- 
tody of the sergeant-at-arms, he forthwith released, on pay- 
ing his fees.^' And on Monday the 17th, " a complaint 
being made that the sergeant-at-arms had demanded ex- 
cessive fees for the imprisonment of Mr. Milton, " it be 
referred to the committee of privileges, &;c. to examine 
what is fit to be given to the sergeant for his fees in this 
case." 

It is most likely that he was so much disgusted by the 
versatility which he had witnessed in men of all ranks, 
(clergy and laity having, with but few exceptions, aban- 
doned all their avowed principles, and bowed to the rising 
sun,) that he now retired from public life, and never again 
interfered with politics. So far as appears, he strictly 
attended to the text of the court divine. Dr. Griffiths : 
" My son, fear thou God, and the King, and meddle not 
with them that are given to change /" It must afford much 
pleasure to the admirers of Milton's character, that he 
now exemplified, in his own conduct, the features which 
he has drawn of Abdiel, " the fervent angel :" — 

* It is stated by Richardson, p. 89, that Milton owed his life to Sir 
William D^Avenant, who had himself been pardoned in 1650 at the in- 
tercession of Milton. 



LIFE OF MILTON, 221 

" Faithful found among the faithless ; 

Nor numbers, nor example, with him wrought 

To swerve from truth 



For this was all thy care, to stand approv'd 

In sight of God, though worlds judg'd thee perverse." 

He soon after again entered into the marriage state, 
with Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Minshal, of Cheshire ; 
who was recommended to him by his distinguished friend, 
Dr. Paget. His family now consisted of his wife, and 
three daughters by his first wife : two of these he had 
taught to read and pronounce, with great exactness, the 
English, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Greek, and 
Latin languages. There was no book therefore in those 
languages, that he wished to use, but what either of them 
could read to him, though they did not understand any but 
their mother tongue. It is said, his daughters complained 
of this employment as drudgery, and that when he was 
made acquainted with it, he instantly dispensed with their 
assistance, and procured for them the knowledge of some 
useful trades suited to their sex and taste. 

This is the proper place to introduce the account given 
by Thomas EUwood, the Quaker, of his becoming ac- 
quainted with Milton. This plain but learned man says : 
'' John Milton, a gentleman of great note for learning, 
throughout the learned world, for the accurate pieces he 
had written on various subjects and occasions. This per- 
son having filled a public station in former times, lived 
now a private and retired life in London ; and having 
wholly lost his sight, kept always a man to read to him, 
which usually was the son of some gentleman of his ac- 
quaintance, whom in kindness he took to improve in learn- 
ing. Thus, by the mediation of my friend Isaac Penning- 
ton with Dr. Paget, and of Dr. Paget with John Milton, 
was I admitted to come to him ; not as a servant to him, 
20 



222 LIFE OF MILTOIf. 

(which at that time he needed not,) nor to be in the house 
with him ; but only to have the liberty of coming to his 
house, at certain times when I would, and to read to him 
what books he should appoint me. Understanding that 
the mediation for my admittance with John Milton had 
succeeded so well that I might come when I would, I 
hastened to London, and in the first place went to wait 
upon him. 

" He received me courteously, as well for the sake of 
Dr. Paget who introduced me, as of Isaac Pennington j 
who recommended me ; to both whom he bore a good 
respect. And having enquired divers things of me, in 
respect to my former progression in learning, he dismist 
me, to provide myself such accommodations as might be 
most suitable to my future studies. I went therefore and 
took myself a lodging as near to his house (which was 
then in Jewen-sireet) as conveniently I could ; and from 
thenceforward went every day in the afternoon, (except 
on the first day of the week,) and sitting by him in his 
dining-room, read to him in such books in the Latin 
tongue as he pleased to hear me read. 

" At my first sitting to read to him, observing that I 
used the English ^pronunciation, he told me. ' If I would 
have the benefit of the Latin tongue, (not only to read 
and understand Latin authors, but) to converse with fo- 
reigners either abroad or at home, I must learn the foreign 
pronunciation." To this I consenting, he instructed me 
how to sound the vowels. Perceiving with what earnest 
desire I pursued learning, he gave me not only all the 
encouragement, but all the help he could. For having a 
curious ear, he understood by my tones, when I under- 
stood what I read, and when I did not. 

" Some time before I went to Alesbury prison in 1665, 
I was desired by my quondam master, Milton, to take a 



LIFE OF MILTON. 22S 

liouse for him in the neighbourhood where I dwelt, that he 
might get out of the city, for the safety of himself and his 
family, the pestilence then growing hot in London. I took 
a pretty Box for him in Giles Chalfont, a mile from me, 
of which I gave him notice; and intended to have waited 
on him, and seen him well settled in it, but was prevented 
by that imprisonment. But now being released, and re- 
turned home, I soon made a visit to him, to welcome him 
into the country. 

"After some common discourses had passed between 
us, he called for a manuscript of his; which being brought; 
he delivered to me, bidding me take it home with me, and 
read it at my leisure ; and when I had so done to return 
it to him, with my judgment thereupon. 

" When I came home, and had set myself to read it, I 
found it was that excellent poem. Paradise Lost. After 
I had, with the best attention, read it through, I made him 
another visit, and returned him his book, with due acknow- 
ledgment of the favour he had done rae, in communicating 
it to me. He asked me how I liked it, and what I thought 
of it ; which I modestly but freely told him : and after 
^ome further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, 
^ Thou hast said much here of Paradise lost, but what hast 
thou to say of Paradise found V He made me no answer, 
but sate some time in a muse, then broke off that dis- 
course, and fell upon another subject. 

" After the sickness was over, and the city well cleansed 
and become safely habitable again, he returned thither. 
And when afterwards I went to wait on him there, (which 
I seldom failed of doing whenever any occasions drew 
me to London,) he shewed me his second Poem, called 
Paradise Regained, and in a pleasant tone said to me, 
^ This is owing to you ; for you put it into my head, by 



224 LIFE OF MILTON. 

the question you put to me at Chalfont ; which before I 
had not thought of.' "* 

It will be seen from the account given by Ell wood, that 
he had finished his incomparable poem, " Paradise Lost," 
in 1665. It does not appear at what period he commenced 
writing it, but it is most likely the world is indebted for it, 
at least for its completion, to his having been removed 
from his office of Latin Secretary, or he would never have 
secured the requisite and uninterrupted leisure which such 
a composition necessarily required. It was happy for the 
admirers of exquisite poetry too, that he did not accept, 
as it is said he had an opportunity, the offer of being re- 
stored to his former station as Latin Secretary to the go- 
vernment. It was on this occasion, when urged to ac- 
cept the office by his wife, that he replied, " Ah ! my 
dear, you are like most other females, you would like to 
be a lady and ride in a coach ; but my ambition is to live 
and die an honest man. "f 

His immortal poem, " Paradise Lost," was begun, it is 
said, about 1655. I conjecture that the two first books 
only were written while he was employed as Latin Sec- 

* Eihvood's Life, 132, 135, and 234. 

t Dr. Johnson, who is always malignant towards Milton, intimates his 
doubts as to the truth of this statement. It rests however upon good 
grounds. 

Richardson says, p. 100, " My authority is Henry Bendish, Esq. a des- 
cendant by his mother's side from the Protector, Oliver Cromwell. Their 
family and Milton's were in great intimacy before and after his death, 
and the thing was known among them. Mr. Bendish has heard the widow, 
or daughter, or both say it, that soon after the Restoration, the king offered to 
employ this pardoned man as his Latin Secretary, the post in which he 
served Cromwell with so much integrity and ability. (That a like offer 
was made to Thurlow has never been disputed, as ever I heard.) Milton 
withstood the offer ; the wife pressed his compliance : ' Thou art in the 
rights ' said he, ' you, as other women would ride in your coach ; /or me^ 
mv aim is to live and die an honest man.^ 



LIFE OF MILTON. 225 

retary. Admitting this supposition to be right, then the 
work was recommenced at the third chapter, after his 
being delivered from his state of " obscure sojourn," and 
with a reference to that awful obscurity into which he 
was plunged, as into the *' Stygian pool." It was pub- 
lished in ten books ; but it was afterwards, under his di- 
rection, arranged into twelve books. I shall not attempt 
any description of its unrivalled excellencies ; this has 
repeatedly been done by writers who were more equal 
to such criticisms than to which I can have any preten- 
sions. As to the correctness of its theological sentiments, 
I speak without any hesitation ; and as to the sublimity of 
the sentiments, I profess myself to be lost in wonder and 
admiration ! The first paragraph explains fully the cause 
which enabled him to produce this almost super-human 
poem : " The meek will HE guide in judgment ; the meek 
will HE teach his way !" 

" Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat. 
Sing heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top 
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire 
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed. 
In the beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth 
Rose out of Chaos ; or, if Sion hill 
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook, that flow'd 
Fast by the oracle of God ; I thence 
Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous song. 
That with no middle flight attempts to soar 
Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues 
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. 

And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer, 
Before all temples, th' upright heart and pure, 
Instruct me, for thou know'st ; Thou from the first 
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread, 

20* 



226 LIFE OF MILTON/ 

Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss, 
And mad'st it pregnant : What in me is dark, 
Illumine : what is low, raise and support ; 
That to the height of this great argument 
1 may assert eternal Providence, 
And justify the ways of God to men." 

Book i. 1—25. 

The few other extracts which I make from this most 
extraordinary poem, will be for eliciting his religious 
sentiments on some important points of theology.* 

"Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first born I 

Or of th' Eternal coeternal beam, 

May I express thee unblam'd 7 since God is ligh t, 

And never but in unapproached light 

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, 

Bright effluence of bright essence increate ! 

Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream, 

Whose fountam who shall tell ? before the sun. 

Before the Heav'ns thou wert, and, at the voice 

Of God, as with a mantle didst invest, 

The rising world of waters dark and deep, 

Won from the void and formless infinite. 

Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing, 

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detain'd 



♦ Toland says, p. 129, "I must not forget that we had like to be eter- 
nally deprived of this treasure, by the ignorance or malice of the. licenser ; 
who among other frivolous exceptions, would needs suppress the whole 
poem for imaginary treason in the following lines :— 

"As when the sun new risen, 
Looks thro' the horizontal misty air, 
Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon 
In dark eclipses disastrous twilight sheds. 
On half the nations and with fear of change. 
Perplexes monarchs." 

The licenser was the Rev. Thomas Tomkyns, one of the chaplains of 
Archbishop Sheldon. This office, I find, had been abolished during the 
Protectorate, but was restored, with other corruptions, at the Restoration. 



LIFE OF MILTON. 227 

In that obscure sojourn,* while in my flight 
Through utter and through middle darkness borne, 
With other notes than to th' Orphean lyre, 
I sung of Chaos and eternal night, 
Taught by th' Heav'nly Muse to venture down 
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend. 
Though hard and rare : thee I re-visit safe, 
And feel thy gov' reign vital lamp, but thou 
Re-visit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain 
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn ; 
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs, 
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more 
Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt 
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, 
Smit with the love of sacred song ; but chief 
Thee, Sion and the flow'ry brooks beneath. 
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow, 
Nightly I visit : nor sometimes forget 
Those other two equall'd with me in fate, 
So were I equall'd with them in renown, 
Blind TTiamyris and blind Moeonides, 
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old : 
Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move 
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird 
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid 
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year 
Seasons return, but not to me returns 
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, 
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose. 
Or flocks or herds or human face divine ; 
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark 
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men 
Cut oflT, and for the book of knowledge fair 
Presented with an universal blank 

* Richardson, in his note on the line, " In darkness and with dangers 
compass'd round," says : "This is explained by a piece of secret history, 
for which we have good authority. Paradise Lost was written after tlie 
Restoration, when Milton apprehended himself to be in danger of his 
life, first from royal vengeance, (having been very deeply engaged against 
the royal party,) and when safe by pardon, from private malice and re- 
sentment. He was always in fear, much alone, and slept ill. When 
restless, he would ring for the person who wrote for him, (which was his 
daughter commonly,) to write what he composed, which would sometimes 
flow with great ease." 



228 LIFE OF MILTON, 

Of nature's works, to me expung'd and ras'd, 

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 

So much the rather thou, celestial light, 

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers 

Irradiate ; there plant eyes, all mist from thence 

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell 

Of things invisible to mortal sight." 

Book iii. 1—55 

ON PROVIDENCE. 

" The world was all before them, where to choose 
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. 
They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow. 
Through Eden took their solitary way." 

Book xii. 646—649. 

ON THE NECESSITY OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE HOLT SPIRIT. 

Speaking of his blindness, he says, 

"And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 

So much the rather thou, celestial Light, 

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers 

Irradiate ; there plant eyes, all mist from thence 

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell 

Of things invisible to mortal sight." 

Book iii. lines 50—55. 

ON THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 

And now, 
Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way, 
Not far off Heav'n, in the precincts of light, 
Directly tow'rds the new created world. 
And man there plac'd, with purpose to essay 
If him by force he can destroy, or worse, 
By some false guile pervert ; and shall pervert. 
For Man will hearken to his glozing lies, 
And easily transgress the sole command, 
Sole pledge of his obedience : so will fall 
He and his faithless progeny. Whose fault 7 
Whose but his own ? Ingrate he had of me 
All he could have ; I made him just and right, 



LIFE OF MILTON. 229 

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall." 



*' They therefore as to right belong'd, 
So were created, nor can justly accuse 
Their Maker, or their making, or their fate, 
As if predestination over-rul'd 
Their will, dispos'd by absolute decree 
Of high foreknowledge ; they themselves decreed 
Their own revolt, not I : if I foreknew. 
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault, 
Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown. 
So without least impulse or shadow of fate, 
Or ought by me immutable foreseen, 
They trespass, authors to themselves in all 
Bothwlui'. they judge and what they choose ; for so 
I form'd tiicm free, and free they must remain, 
Till they inthrall themselves ; I else must change 
Their nature and revoke the high decree 
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordain'd 
Their freedom : they themselves ordain'd their fall. 
The first^sortby their own suggestion fell, 
Self-tempted, self-deprav'd : Man falls, deceiv'd 
By th' other first ; Man therefore shall find grace, 
The other none. In mercy and justice both, 
Through Heav'n and Earth, so shall my glory excel, 
But mercy first and last shall brightest shine,'" 

Bookiii. hnes85--100; 110—134, 

ON THE PROPER DIVINITY OF THE SON OF GOD. 

" Beyond compare the Son of God was seen 
Most glorious ; in him all his Father shone 
Substantially express'd ; and in his face 
Divine compassion visibly appear' d. 
Love without end, and without measure grace." 

Book iii. lines 138—142. 

ON PERSONAL ELECTION. 

"As my eternal purpose hath decreed : 
Man shall not quite be lost, but sav'd who will, 
Yet not of will in him, but grace in me 
Freely vouchsafed. 

Some have I chosen of peculiar grace 



230 LIFE OF MILTON, 

Elect above the rest ! so is my will : 
The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warn'd, 
Their sinful state, and to appease betimes 
Th' incensed Deity, while offer' d grace 
Invites; for I will clear their senses dark. 
What may suffice, and soften stony hearts 
To pray, repent, and bring obedience due. 
To pray'r, repentance, and obedience due, 
Though but endeavour'd with sincere intent, 
Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut ; 
And I will place within them as a guide 
My umpire conscience, whom if they will hear. 
Light after light well us'd they shall attain, 
And to the end persisting, safe arrive. 
This my long sufferance and my day of grace 
They who neglect and scorn shall never taste ; 
But hard be harden' d, blind be blinded more, 
That they may stumble on, and deeper fall ; 
And none but such from mercy I exclude." 

ON THE SUBSTITUTION OF CHRIST. 

'' He with his whole posterity must die, 

Die he or justice must ; unless for him 

Some other able, and as willing, pay 

The rigid satisfaction, death for death. 

Say, heav'nly Powers ! where shall we find such love 7 

Which of ye will be mortal to redeem 

Man's mortal crime, and just th' unjust to save ? 

Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear ?" 

Book iii. 208—216. 

"Behold me then; me for him life for life 
£ offer ; on me let thine anger fall ; 
Account me Man ; I for his sake will leave 
Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee 
Freely put off, and for him lastly die 
Well pleas'd: on me let death wreak all his rage ; 
Under his gloomy pow'r I shall not long 
Lie vanquish'd." 

Book iii. 236—243. 

ON FAITHFUL AND ARDENT ZEAL IN RELIGION. 

" So spake the fervent Angel ; but his zeal 



LIFE or MILTON, 281 



None seconded, as out of season judg'd, 
Or singular and rash ; whereat rejoic'd 
The Apostate." 



" So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found 
Among the faithless, faithful only he ; 
Among innumerable false, unmov'd, 
Unshaken, unseduc'd, unterrify'd. 
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal : 
Nor number, nor example, with him wrought 
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, 
Though single." 

Book V. 849—851 ; 896—903. 

ON THE PLEASURES OF AN APPROVING CONSCIENCE. 

" On to the sacred hill 
They led him high applauded, and present 
Before the seat supreme ; from whence a voice, 
From midst a golden cloud thus mild was heard : 

" ' Servant of God well done; well hast thou fought 
The better fight, who single hast maintain' d 
Against revolted multitudes the cause 
Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms ; 
And for the testimony of truth hast borne 
Universal reproach, far worse to bear 
Than violence ; for this was all thy care 
To stand approv'd in sight of God, though worlds 
Judg'd thee perverse.' " 

Book vi. 25—37. 

ON RATIONAL LIBERTY. 

" Let me serve, 
In Heav'n God ever blest, and his divine 
Behests obey, worthiest to be obey' d." 

Bookvi. 183— 185. 

ON THE ENTRANCE OF SIN INTO THE WORLD. 

" So saying, her rash hand in evil hour 
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat. 
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat. 
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe 
That all was lost." 



232 LIFE OF MILTON. 

ON NEGRO COLONIAL SLAVERT, 

" O execrable son bo to aspire 
Above his brethren, to himself assuming 
Authority usurp'd, from God not given; 
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, 
Dominion absolute : that right we hold 
By his donation ; but man over men 
He made not lord : such title to himself 
Reserving, human left from human free." 

Book xii. 64—72. 

ON BAPTISM. 

" To his disciples, men who in his life 
Still foUow'd him ; to them shall leave in charge 
To teach all nations what of him they learn' d. 
And his salvation, them who shall believe 
Baptizing in the profluent stream, the sign . 
Of washing them from guilt of sin to life 
Pure and in mind prepar'd, if so befall. 
For death,* like that which the Redeemer dy'd. 
All nations they shall teach ; for from that day 
Not only to the sons of Abrahain's loins 
Salvation shall be preach'd, but to the sons 
Of Abraham's faith wherever through the world ; 
So in his seed all nations shall be blest." 

Book xii. 438—450. 

His negociation with the bookseller to pubhsh this 
most admirable poem, is now considered a subject of as- 
tonishment ! Let it, however, be recollected, that the 
subject of copyright was but imperfectly understood, and 
that literary property was not, as now, so inviolably se- 
cured. In addition to this, Milton's republicanism could 
not have been forgotten, as the anecdote of the learned 
licenser fully proves ! There were many, doubtless, who 
would have thought, that to describe " the sun new risen," 
and ''shorn of its beams by misty air," must have been 
an overt act of treason ! and who would therefore be 

* i. Cor. 15. " Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, 
if the dead rise not. 



LIFE OF MILTON. 233 

afraid to purchase a book, respecting which, doubtless, 
it would be both said and sung, that the learned licenser 
had at first refused, and at last had, with great hesitation, 
consented to* place his imprimatur upon a manuscript 
poem of poor old blind Milton, who had written the 
" Tenure of Kings,'''' &c. &;c. ! 

His contract for the copyright of " Paradise Lost," 
with Samuel Simmons the bookseller, is dated April 27th, 
1667. It was printed in that year, without the name of 
the purchaser as its printer ; but in the next year it re- 

"* His respectable biographer, Simmons, has recorded an anecdote 
which is certainly very characteristic of the parties to whom it relates, 
though not supported by any authority. "The Duke of York, as it is 
reported, expressed one day to the king his brother, a wish to see old Mil 
TON, of whom he had heard so much. The king replied, that he felt no 
'objection to the Duke satisfying his curiosity; and soon after James went 
privately to Milton's house, where, after an introduction, which explain- 
ed to the old republican the rank of his guest, a free conversation ensued 
bet ween these very dissimilar and discordant characters. In the course, 
however, of the conversation, the Duke asked Milton whether he did 
aot regard the loss of his eye-sight as a judgment inflicted upon him for 
what he had written against the late king. Milton's reply was to this 
effect : ' If your highness thinks that the calamities which befall us here 
are indications of the wrath of Heaven, in what manner are we to account 
for the fate of the king your father? The displeasure of Heaven must, 
u pon this supposition, have been much greater against him than against 
me ; for I have lost only my eyes, but he lost his head.' Much discom- 
posed by this answer, the Duke soon took his leave and went away. On 
his retu m to court, the first words which he spoke to the king were, ' Bro- 
ther, you are greatly to blame, that you don't have that old rogue Mil- 
ton, hanged.' ' Why, what is the matter, James'?' said the king : 'you 
seem in a heat. What ! have you seen Milton V ' Yes,' answered the 
Duke, ' I have seen him.' ' Well,' said the king, ' in what condition did 
you find him V ' Condition ! why, he is old and very poor.' 'Old and 
poor ! Well, he is blind too, is he not V ' Yes, blind as a beetle.' ' Why, 
then,' observed the king, 'you area fool, James, to have him hanged as a 
punishment : to hang him will be doing him a service ; it will be taking 
him out of his miseries. No, if he be old, poor, and blind, he is miserable 
enough ; in all conscience, let him live,' " 

21 



234 LIFE OP MILT OK c 

ceived a new title-page, when the name of S. Simmondgf 
appeared in its proper place. The copyright was sold 
for the actual payment of fiv^ pounds, and the contingent 
payment, on the sale of two thousand six hifndred copies, 
of two other equal sums. At the end of two years, thir- 
teen hundred copies had been circulated. In five years 
after this period a second edition was published, and in 
four years after this, a third was demanded by the public. 
Before the end of twenty years, it had passed through 
twenty editions. 

It is said that he produced his other poem, " Paradise 
Regained," in about ten months after the idea first struck 
his mind ; which is by no means incredible, even v^^heo 
it is considered how great an inconvenience his blindness 
must have occasioned in regard to his being under the 
necessity of employing an amanuensis. At the same' 
time, it must have been favourable to that mental ab- 
straction which the study of so glorious a subject re- 
quired. The serious, contemplative person, v/ho reads 
attentively this strictly religious poem, will soon form an 
idea, from its contents, how happy and pure must have 
been the mind of Milto^st, at the time when he wrote his 
"• Paradise Regained." This was published in 1670. 

Of this poem, in four books only, Todd says : "It is 
generally esteemed much inferior to Paradise Lost ; 
which he could not endure to hear, being quite of an- 
other mind. This occasioned some one to say wittily 
enough, that Milton might be seen in Paradise Lost, but 
not in Paradise Regained .'" And this is the estimate 
still put upon the work, which, if it were surpassed by its 
own author, has never been equalled by any other. I 
suspect that its decidedly religious and evangelical cha- 
racter has procured for it less attention from mere critics, 
than it would have otherwise received : I need not men- 



LIFE OF MILTOTs. 



235 



aoii names of persons v/ho have v/ritten of Milton, who, 
by their irreligious character, or their infidel principles, 
were disqualified for giving a correct opinion of the ex- 
cellencies of « Paradise Regained." I am not surprised 
to find that he was displeased when any one spoke of it 
^'as much inferior to Paradise Lost." 

This poem, if inferior to " Paradise Lost" as to subUm- 
ity and originality of conception, is certainly more than 
equal to it for simplicity and spirituality of statement. It 
is, in fact, a close exposition of the inspired account of 
our Lord's temptation in the wilderness, into which he 
had been led immediately after his baptism by John the 
Baptist, "in the river Jordan," to be tried by the devil, 
as recorded by Matthew, in the fourth chapter of his 
gospel. It strikes me, that the graphic description which 
he has given of "the false glories of the world ;" and of 
the o-eography of " all the kingdoms of the earth," as 
shown to the Messiah " from the pinnacle of the temple," 
displays most extensive and correct worldly knowledge, 
-and religious sentiment. It is also much better suited to 
convey information as to real life, than the fanciful de- 
scriptions which he has drawn, in his "Paradise Lost," 
from the heathen mythology, or the highly. wrought poet- 
ical sketches of Hell— of the birth of Sin and Death— 
the Garden of Eden — and the war among the Angels in 
Heaven. The supposed replies given by our Saviour to 
the flatteries of Satan, are conceived in the highest de- 
gree of nature ; and the easy conquest obtained by Him ^ 
who " though in all points tempted as we are, was yet 
without sin," is drawn by the hand of a master. It is 
impossible for any one, to whom the Saviour "is pre- 
clous," and who considers his triumph as securing the 
victory on behalf of his people over Satan and the world, 
to read this admirable work, without saying, " Thanks be 



236 LIFE OF MILTON. 

to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Je- 
sus Christ," If, in reading ." Paradise Lost," he meets 
with much to produce deep and painful humihation ; he 
will, in reading " Paradise Regained," meet with much 
to excite exalted praise and thanksgiving. " For as by 
one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by 
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." 

When, in 1670, he published his " Paradise Regained," 
he added to it his " Sampson Agonistes ;" which I con.^ 
jecture, from its having no allusion to his own blindness, 
when that of Sampson's is so touchingly described, must 
have been composed before he had lost his sight. To- 
land calls this " an excellent tragedy, not a ridiculous 
mixture of gravity and farce, according to most of the 
modern, but after the example of the yet unequall'd an- 
tients, as they are justly called, ^Eschylus, Sophocles, 
Euripides." Though this was written in the dramatic 
form, yet, as the author expresses in the Preface, it was 
not designed for dramatic representation. Indeed, the 
correct performance of a few such pieces as SAMPSO^' 
Agonistes, would soon get rid of the large audiences 
which nightly flock to the theatres. 

There cannot be a more concentrated and juster de- 
scription of Milton, considered as a poet, than in the 
well-known words of Dryden : — 

" Three Poets in three distant ages born, 
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn t 
Tlie first in loftiness of thought surpassed t 
The next in majesty ; in both tlie last. 
The force of nature could no further go : 
To make a third, she joined the former two.'- 

Mention has been made of the withdrawment of Mil- 
ton at the time of the plague, in 1666, to the country. 
This probably led to the report that he had died of that 



LIFE OF MILTOX. 237 

disease. Some of his foreign friends, by whom he was 
still held in high estimation, wrote to inquire if this report 
were true. The following letter, the last of his familiar 
epistles, addressed to Peter Heimhach, a learned German, 
will show the state of his mind, deserted as he was by 
nearly all his ungrateful countrymen : — ■ 

' To the most accomplished Peter Heimbach, Councillor of 
State to the Elector of Brandenhurgh, 

" That in a year so pestilential and so fatal as the 
present, amidst the deaths of so many of my compatriots, 
you should have believed me likewise, as you write me 
word, in consequence too of some rumour or other, to 
have fallen a victim, excites in me no surprise : and if that 
rumour owed its currency among you, as it seems to have 
done, to an anxiety for my welfare, I feel flattered by it, 
as an instance of your friendly regard. Through the 
providence of God, however, who had provided me with 
a safe retreat in the country, I still live, and am well : 
and would that I could add, not incompetent to any duty 
which it may be my future destiny to discharge. 

" But that, after so long an interval, I should have re- 
curred to your recollection, is highly gratifying to me ; 
though, to judge of your elegant embellishments of the 
matter, when you profess your admiration of so many 
diflTerent virtues united in my single person, you seem to 
furnish some ground for suspecting I have indeed escaped 
from your remembrance. From such a number of unions, 
in fact, I should have cause to dread a progeny too nu- 
merous, were it not admitted, that in disgrace and adver- 
sity the virtues principally increase and flourish. One of 
them, however, has not made me any very grateful re- 
turn for her entertainment, for she whom you call the 
poUtical, (though I had rather you had termed her love 

21* 



23S LIFE OF MILTOIN'. 

of country,) after seducing me with ber fine name, has 
nearly, if I may so express myself, deprived me of a 
country. The rest, indeed, harmonize more perfectly 
together. Our country is wherever we can live as we 
ought. 

" Before I conclude, I must prevail on you to impute 
whatever incorrectness of orthography or of punctuation 
in this epistle to my young amanuensis, whose total ig- 
norance of Latin has imposed on me the disagreeable ne- 
cessity of actually dictating to him every individual letter,. 

" That your deserts, as a man, consistently with the 
high promise with which you raised my expectations in 
your youth, should have elevated you to so eminent a 
station in your sovereign's favour, gives me the most 
sincere pleasure ; and I fervently pray and trust that yoo 
may proceed and prosper. Farewell.. 

'' London, August^ 1666.'' 

It appears that he had, several years before this, com- 
menced writing his History of Britain : this he had found 
leisure to complete, at least so far as the Norman Con- 
quest. It was published in 1670, but not as it came out 
of the hands of its honest author ; " For," says Toland, 
" the licensers, those sworn officers to destroy learning, 
liberty, and good sense, expunged several passages of it, 
wherein he had exposed the superstition, pride, and cun- 
ning, of the Popish monks in the Saxon times, but which 
were applied, by the sagacious licensers, to the bishops 
of Charles II." Well, I do not wonder they should have 
thought it to have heen ?i parody ! And what could have 
so galled the bishops, who had been at the bottom of the 
Act of Uniformity, and all the other persecuting statutes 
of that infamous and dissolute reign, as a picture of Saxon 
episcopal superstition .craft, and cunning? Toland say s^ 



LIFE OF MILTON. 239 

" the rejection of those passages put me in mind of a reply 
to a certain person by Sir Robert Howard, a gentleman 
of great generosity, a patron of letters, a hearty friend to 
the Uberty ofhis country, and a great admirer of Milton, 
and his steady friend to his dying day. Milton having 
been charged in some publication with having whipped 
the Protestant clergy on the back of the heathen and 
popish priests. Sir Robert asked ; < What they had to do 
there ?'" It is not said how he obtained the publication 
of this History at such a time as was the year 1670 ; but 
we are told that he bestowed a copy of the manuscript, 
while unlicensed, on the Earl of Anglesey, who in com- 
mon with several of the nobility and gentry, was his con- 
stant visitor. "It is," adds Toland, "an irreparable loss 
to this most potent nation, that Milton did not find leisure 
to bring down his history to his own times." There were 
other powerful causes for this " irreparable loss" than the 
want of leisure. If the reverend licensers of the press 
would not suffer the History of the Saxons before the 
Conquest to be written fully out, what would they have 
said to a history written by the unbought and unpurchas- 
able Milton of the times after the Restoration ? The 
fairly written history of the intrigues of the bishops at the 
Savoy conference, and to procure the expulsion of two 
thousand Presbyterian confessors, would have been such 
an exposure of " superstition, pride, and cunning," as 
would have driven Dr. Seth Ward, and some others of 
the episcopal bench, stark raving mad ! 

Milton, finding he could not have fair play shown him 
as a writer of history, employed himself in composing 
elementary school books — as a Latin Grammar, also a 
work entitled, Artis Logicm plenior Institutio ad Petrie 
Rami methodum concinnata.^^ He was permitted to pub- 
lish too, "A brief History of Muscovy, and other less 



240 LIFE OF MILTO:V. 

known Countries lying eastward of it as far as Cathapy 
collected from the relation of several Travellers." He 
translated from the Latin the Declaration of the Poles 
concerning the Election of their King, John III. contain- 
ing an account of the virtues and merits of that prince. 
He published also Sir Walter Raleigh's " Prince, or 
Maxims and Aphorisms of State ;" and his " Cabinet 
Council." His biographer, Toland, evidently pained at 
heart that the bigotry of the bishops should have bound 
in fetters this blind Sampson, and thus have almost de- 
prived the world of his learning and knowledge, says : 
^'More pieces of this rarely accomplished, though unfor- 
tunate gentleman, were made public by other persons : 
and I daily expect more from James Tyrrel, who has the 
manuscript copies." 

The mighty energies of Milton were at length roused, 
by the shameful and hypocritical countenance which at 
this time were given to papists by the king and the Duke 
of York, the heir presumptive to the throne. He saw 
through the thin disguise which had, in 1672, granted 
licenses for opening the meeting-houses of Protestant dis- 
senters ; nor could he feel any thing but detestation of 
the dispensing power arrogated by the king, in granting, 
for a small sum of money, such licenses. It is not said, 
but it is by no means improbable, that the bishops might 
have now solicited the aid of their former implacable foe, 
and still, as to his dissenting principles, uncompromising 
enemy. However it was, in the year 1673, he wrote 
what proved to be his last work, and which was published 
just before his death. This was entitled, "A Treatise of 
true Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the best 
Means that may he used to prevent the growth of Popery. 
The author, J. M., London, printed in the year 1673." 



LIFE OF MILTON. 241 

The work thus commences : — 

" It is unknown to no man, who knows aught of concern- 
ment among us, that the increase of Popery is at this day- 
no small trouble and offence to [the] greatest part of the 
nation ; and the rejoicing of all good men that it is so, the 
more their rejoicing, that God hath given a heart to the 
people, to remember still their great and happy deliver- 
ance from Popish thraldom, and to esteem so highly the 
precious benefit of his gospel, so freely and so peaceably 
enjoyed among them. Since, therefore, some have al- 
ready in public, with many considerable arguments, ex- 
horted the people to beware the growth of this Romish 
weed ; I thought it no less than a common duty to lend 
my hand, how unable soever to so good a purpose. I will 
not now enter into the labyrinth of Councils and Fathers, 
an intangled wood, which the Papist loves to fight in, not 
with hope of a victory, but to obscure the shame of an 
overthrow ; which yet in that kind of combat, many here- 
tofore, and one of late, hath eminently given them. And 
such manner of dispute with them, to learned men useful, 
and very commendable. But I shall incist now, on what 
is plainer to common apprehension." 

*' True religion is the true worship and service of God, 
learnt and believed from the word of God only. No man 
or angel can know how God would be worship'd and 
serv'd, unless God reveal it. He hath reveal'd and taugh t 
it us in the Holy Scriptures by inspir'd ministers, and in 
the gospel by his own Son and his Apostles, with strictest 
commands to reject all other traditions or additions what- 
soever ; according to that of St. Paul, Though we or an 
angel from heaven 'preach any other gospel unto you, than 
that we have preached unto you, let him he anathema, or ac- 
curst ,' and Deut. iv. 2, Ye shall not add to the word which 
I command, neither shall you diminish aught from it. Rev. 



•242 LIFE OF MILTON. 

xxii. 18, 19, If any man shall add, <^c. If any man shall 
take away from the words, 4*c. With good and religious 
reasons, therefore, all Protestant churches, with one con- 
sent, and particularly the Church of England, in her 
Thirty-nine Articles. Articles 6th, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 
elsewhere, maintain these two points as the main princi- 
ples of true religion, that the rule of true rehgion is, the 
word of God only ; and that their faith ought not to be 
an implicit faith, that is to believe though as the church 
believes, against or without express authority from Scrip- 
ture." 

His exposure of the system of Popery is in his own 
best manner: he says — " One of their own famous wri- 
ters found just cause to stile the Romish Church, Mother 
of Error, School of Heresy." 

Amongst the best means to prevent the growth of Po- 
pery, he says, " Will be to read duly and diligently the 
Holy Scriptures, which, as St. Paul saith to Timothy, 
° From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which 
are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith 
which is in Christ Jesus ;' and to the church at Colosse, 
(chap. iii. 16,) ' Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly 
in all wisdom,' &c." He adds, "The papal anti-christian 
Church permits not the laity^to read the Bible in her own 
tongue : our Protestant Church, on the contrary, hath pro- 
posed it to all men, and to this end translated it into Eng- 
lish, with profitable notes to what is met with obscure : 
though what is most necessary to be known is still plain- 
est, that all sorts and degrees of men, not, understanding 
it in the original, may read it in their mother tongue." 

" Another means," he says, " to abate Popery, arises 
from the constant reading of Scripture, wherein believers 
who agree in the main, are every where exhorted to mu^ 
tual forbearance and charity towards one another, though 



LIFE OF MILTOK. 243 

dissenting in some opinions. It is written that the coat of 
our Saviour was without seam ; whence some would in- 
ter, that there should be no division in the church of 
Christ. It should be so indeed ; yet seams in the same 
cloth neither hurt the garment, nor misbecome it ; and 
not only seams but schisms wijl be, while men are fallible. 
But if they dissent in matters not essential to belief, while 
the common adversary is in the field, and stand jarfing 
and pelting at one another, they will be soon routed and 
subdued." 

''It is human frality to err," says he, " and no man is 
infallible here on earth. But so long as the Lutherans, 
Calvinists, Anahapists, Socinians, and Arminians, profess 
to set the Word of God only before them as the rule of 
their faith and obedience ; and use all diligence and sin- 
cerit}" of heart, by reading, by learning, by study, by prayer 
for illumination of the Holy Spirit, to understand this rule 
md obey it, they have don whatever man can do. God will 
assuredly pardon them, as he did the friends of Job, good 
and pious men, tho' much mistaken (as there it appears) 
in som points of doctrin. But som will say, with Chris- 
tians it is otherwise, whom God has promis'd by his Spirit 
to teach all things. True, all things absolutely necessary 
to salvation : but the hottest disputes among Protestants, 
calmly and charitably examin'd, will be found less than 
such. The Lutheran holds Consubstantiation ; an error 
indeed, but not mortal. The Calvinist is taxM with Pre- 
destination, and to make God the author of sin, not with 
any dishonorable thoughts of God, but, it may be, over- 
zealously asserting his absolute power, not without plea 
from Scripture. The Anabaptist is accus'd of denying 
Infants their right to Baptism ; they say again, that they 
deny nothing but what the Scripture denys them. The 
Arian and Socinian are charg'd to dispute against the 



244 LIFE OF MILTON. 

Trinity ; yet they affirm to believe the Father, Son and 
Holy Ghost, according to Scripture and the Apostolic 
Creed. As for the terms of Trinity, Triunity, Coessen- 
tiality, Tripersonality, and the like, they reject them as 
scholastic notions, not to be found in Scripture, which, by 
a general Protestant maxim, is plain and perspicuous 
abundantly to explain its own meaning in the properest 
words belonging to so high a matter, and so necessary to 
be known ; a mystery indeed in their sophistic suhtilties, but 
in Scripture a plain doctrin. The Arminian, lastly, is con- 
demn'd for setting up Free Will against Free Grace ; but 
that imputation he disclaims in all his writings, and 
grounds himself largely upon Scripture only. It cannot 
be deny'd that the authors or late revivers of all these 
sects or opinions, were learned, worthy, zealous, and re- 
ligious men, as appears by their lives written, and the 
fame of their many eminent and learned followers, per- 
fect and powerful in the Scriptures, holy and unblamable 
in their actions : and it cannot be imagin'd that God would 
desert such painful and zealous labourers in his Church, 
and ofttimes great sufferers for their conscience, to dam- 
nable errors and reprobat sense, who had so often im- 
plor'd the assistance of his Spirit ; but rather, having made 
no man infallible, that he has pardon'd their errors, and 
accepts their pious endeavours, sincerely searching all 
things according to the rule of Scripture, with such gui- 
dance and direction as they can obtain of God by prayer. 
What Protestant then, who himself maintains the same 
principles, and disavows all implicit faith, would perse- 
cute, and not tolerat such men as these, unless he means 
to abjure the principles of own religion? If it be ask'd, 
how far they should be tolerated ? I answer, doubtless 
equally, as being all Protestants ; that is, on all occasions 
to be permitted to give an account of their faith, either by 



LIFE OF MILTON. 245 

arguing, preaching in their several assemblies, by public 
writing, and the freedom of printing." 

I quote Toland's statement as regards Milton's senti- 
ments in relation to whether Papists should also be toler- 
ated : " In the last place, Milton shews that Popery (not 
as it is a religion, hut a tyrannical faction, oppressing all 
others) is intolerable ; and that the best method of keep- 
ing it from ever increasing in this nation, is by the tolera- 
tion of all sorts of Protestants, or any others, whose prin- 
ciples do not necessarily lead them to sedition and vice." 
After having urged, as another mean to prevent the 
growth of Popery, the necessity of Protestants " amend- 
ing their lives," and reforming their conduct, he thus con- 
cludes : " Let us therefore, using this last mean, last here 
spoken of, but first to be done, amend our lives with all 
speed ; least, through impenitency, we run into that stu- 
pidly, which we now seek by all means warily to avoid, 
THE WORST OF SUPERSTITIONS, and the heaviest of all 
God's judgments, POPERY !" 

It is probable that it was this his last work, that, on ac- 
count of its Protestant zeal, called forth the spleen of the 
Rev. Dr. Parker, afterwards the Bishop of Oxford or 
Arch-deacon of Canterbury, who had virulently attacked 
Milton in 1673. The celebrated Andrew Marvel, who 
had been associated with Milton in 1657, as secretary 
to the Lord Protector, drew his pen in defence of his aged 
and calumniated friend, and in his *' Rehearsal Trans- 
posed," addressed to Parker, he thus writes : " You do 
three times, at least, in your Reproof, and in your Trans- 
poser Rehearsed^ well nigh half^the book through, run up- 
on an author, J. M. which does not a little offend me. — 
For why should any other man's reputation suffer in a 
contest between you and me ? But it is because you re- 
solved to suspect that he had a hand in my former book, 
22 



246 LIFE OF MILTON. 

[the first part of the Rehearsal, pubHshed in 1672,] where- 
in, whether you deceive yourself or no, you deceive 
others extreamly. For, by chance, I had not seen him of 
two years before ; but after I undertook writing, I did 
more carefully avoid either visiting him or sending to him, 
lest I should any way involve him in my consequences.— 
And you might have understood, or I am sure your friend, 
the author of the Common Pleas, could have told you, (he 
too had a slash at J. M. on my account,) that had he took 
you in hand, you would have had cause to repent the oc- 
casion, and not escaped so easily as you did under my 
Transposal. But because, in your 115th page, you are 
so particular, you know a friend of ours, (Sfc. intending 
THAT J. M. and his answer to Salmasius, I think it season- 
able to acquit my promise to you, in giving the reader a 
short trouble concerning my first acquaintance with you. 
J. M. was, and is, a man of as great learning and sharp- 
ness of wit as any man. It was his misfortune, living in a 
tumultuous time, to be tossed on the wrong side ; and he 
writ flagrante hello, certain dangerous treatises. At his 
majesty's happy return, J. M. did partake (and you your- 
self did, for all your huffing) of his royal clemency, and 
has ever since expiated himself in a retired silence." 

I am quite sure that Milton did not thank his friend 
Martel for this apology. There is not a hint in any wri- 
ter I have seen, that Milton ever abjured any of his po- 
litical principles, or ever regretted that he had published 
them ! He was an honest republican, preferring a coun- 
cil of state, but not objecting to have a presiding head, 
whether called protector, or even king. 

Sir Robert Howard, one of his admirers, asked him 
once, " What made him side with the republicans ?" 
"Why," said he, " among other things, because there's 



LIFE OF MILTON. 947 

was the most frugal government; for the trappings of a 
MONARCHY might setup an ordinary commonwealth."* 

The fact is, that Milton thought a republican govern- 
ment the most likely to grant, and to protect, liberty of 
conscience ; but he was comparatively indifferent, so that 
was secured, by what kind of government it was effected. 
And is it any wonder he should have preferred even the gov- 
ernment of the army which secured this blessing, to that of 
a monarch (and such was Charles II.) who set oaths, and 
vows, and declarations, at defiance, in regard to banish- 
ing Protestant dissenters, and putting them to death by 
thousands, and robbing them, by fines and confiscations, 
of millions of their property ! 

The respect which was shown to Milton after the Re- 
storation, proves the high estimation in which his charac- 
ter for literature, and integrity, and piety was held. To- 
land having mentioned that several of the nobility and 
gentry were his constant visitors, adds : " Nor was he 
less frequented by foreners to the last, than in the time of 
his flourishing condition before the Restoration." What a 
remarkable proof that " when a man's ways please the 
Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with 
him !" HE, whom he had faithfully served, and aimed 
steadily to honour, kept him as in the hollow of his hand, 
and guarded him " as the apple of his eye ;" and not- 
withstanding the numerous and violent changes which he 
witnessed from 1640 to 1674, he was unchangeable in his 
principles as to civil and religious liberty, and went 
through them all with a high degree of reputation both 
as a citizen and a Christian ; and doubtless enjoyed more 
security and contentment, though blind, in his cottage, 
than Charles did on his throne ; or the Cabal in the 
council, or the Bishops in their palaces ! 

Toland says : " Towards the latter part of his time he 
* Tolaud's Life of Milton. 



248 LIFE OF MILTON. 

contracted his library, both because the heirs he left could 
not make a right use of it, and that he thought he could 
sell it more to their advantage than they would be able to 
do themselves. His enemies reported that poverty con- 
strained him thus to part with his books : and were this 
true, it would be certainly a great disgrace, not to him? 
(for persons of the highest merits have been often reduced 
to that condition,) but to any country, that should have no 
more regard to probity or learning. This story, however, 
is so false, that he died worth fifteen hundred pounds, be- 
sides all his [household] goods. The house wherein he 
was born, and which persons used to visit [on that ac- 
count] before the fire, [in 1666,] was part of his estate as 
long as he lived. He put two thousand pounds into the 
Excise, which he lost when that Bank failed ; not to men- 
tion another great sum which was gon for want of man- 
agement and good advice.' 

He had enjoyed through life tolerable, but not uninter- 
rupted health. His principle disorder which troubled him 
most was the gout, and this at last brought him to his end. 
He died without much pain, the 8th of November, 1674, 
in the 66th year of his age. None of his biographers 
have preserved any account of the state of his mind in 
his last sickness : there can be no reasonable ground 
however for doubting, but that having through life " given 
diligence to make his calling and election sure," that in 
his death he did not "fall :" — '< And so an entrance was 
administered to him abundantly into the everlasting king- 
dom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," to whose di- 
rection [he had scrupulously adhered, and on whose pro- 
mise he had steadily relied ; — "^e tliou faithful unto death, 
and I will give thee the crown of life." 

In relation to the house in which he died, Hayley says : 
" Soon after his marriage in 1661, he had removed from 



LIFE OF MILTON. 249 

his house in Jewin-street to a house in the Artillery Walk, 
leading to Bunhill-Fields, a spot that, to his enthusiastick 
admirers, may appear consecrated by his genius. Here 
he resided at that period of his days when he was pecu- 
liarly entitled to veneration : here he probably finished 
no less than three of his most admirable works ; and 
here, with a dissolution so easy that it was unperceived 
by the persons in his bed-chamber, he closed a life, cloud- 
ed indeed by uncommon, and various calamities, yet en- 
nobled by the constant exercise of such rare endowments, 
as render his name, perhaps, the very first in that radiant 
and comprehensive list of which England, the most 
fertile of countries in the produce of mental power, has 
reason to be proud." 

Speaking of his funeral, Toland says, "All his learned 
and great friends in London, not without a friendly con- 
course of the vulgar, accompanied his body to the church 
of St. Giles, near Cripplegate, where he lies buried in 
in the chancel." The register is thus entered, " John 
Melton, gentleman, consumption, chancell, 12th No- 
vember, 1674." Melton has been altered into fresher 
ink to Milton.* 

" Thus Hved and died," adds Toland, " John Milton, 
a person of the best accomplishments, the happiest genius, 
and the vastest learning, which this nation, so renown'd 
for producing excellent writers, could ever yet show : 
esteem'd indeed at home, but much more honor'd abroad, 
where almost in his childhood he made a considerable 
figure, and continues to be still reputed one of the bright- 
est luminaries of the sciences. 

" He was middle-siz'd, and well-proportion'd, his de- 
portment erect and manly, his hair of a light brown, hia 



* Todd, 217. 



250 LIFE OF MILTON, 

features exactly regular, his complexion wonderfully fair 
when a youth, and ruddy to the very last. 

" He was affable in conversation, of an equal and 
chearful temper, and highly delighted with all sorts of 
music, in which he was himself not meanly skill'd. 

"He was extraordinarily temperat in his diet, which 
was any thing most in season or the easiest procured, 
and was no friend to sharp or strong liqours. 

*' His recreations, before his sight was gon, consisted 
much in feats of activity, particularly in the exercise of 
his arms, which he could handle with dexterity : but when 
blindness confin'd him, he play'd much upon an organ 
he kept in the house, and had a pully to swing and keep 
him in motion. 

" But the love of books exceeded all his other passions. 
In summer he would be stirring at four in the morning, 
and in winter at five ; but at night he us'd to go to bed 
by nine partly attributing the loss of his eyes to his late 
watching when he was a student, and looking on this cus- 
tom as very pernicious to health at any time : but when 
he was not dispos'd to rise at his usual hours, he always 
had one to read to him by his bed-side. 

" As he look'd upon true and absolute freedom to be 
the greatest happiness of this life, whether to societies or 
single persons ; so he thought constraint of any sort to be 
the utmost misery ; for which reason he us'd to tell those 
about him the entire satisfaction of his mind, that he had 
constantly imploy'd his strength and faculties in the de- 
fence of liberty, and in a direct opposition to slavery. 

" He ever exprest the profoundest reverence to the 
Deity, as well in deeds as words ; and would say to his 
friends, that the divine properties of Goodness, Justice, 
and Mercy, were the adequat rule of human actions, nor 
less the object of imitation for private advantages, than of 



LIFE OF MILTON. 251 

admiration or respect for their own excellence and per- 
fection. 

" In his early days he was a favorer of those Protest- 
ants then opprobriously call'd by the name of Puritans: 
in his middle years he was best pleas'd with the Independ- 
ents and Anabaptists, as allowing of more liberty than oth- 
ers, and coming nearest, in his opinion, to the primitive 
practice : but in the latter part of his life, he was not a 
profest member of any particular sect among Christians, 
he frequented none of their assemblies, nor made use of 
their peculiar rights in his family. Whether this proceed- 
ed from a dislike of their uncharitable and endless dis- 
putes, and that love of dominion, or inclination to persecu- 
tion, which, he said, was a piece of Popery inseparable 
from all churches ; or whether he thought one might be 
a good man, without subscribing to any party ; and that 
they had all in som things corrupted the institutions of Je- 
sus Christ, I will by no means adventure to determin : for 
conjectures on such occasions are very uncertian, and I 
never met with any of his acquaintance who could be 
positive in assigning the true reasons of his conduct. 

*'♦ I shall now conclude this discourse with a character 
given of him by a man ofunparallel'd diligence and indus- 
try, who has disoblig'd all sides, merely for telling the 
truth, either intirely, or without disguise ; and who, since 
most men have the frailty of ingaging in factions, cannot 
be suspected of partiality in favor of Milton. ' He was a 
person,' says Anthony Wood, in the first volume of his 
Athence Oxonienses, ' of wonderful parts, of a very sharp, 
biting, and satyrical wit ; he was a good philosopher and 
historian ; an excellent poet, Latinist, Grecian, and He- 
brician ; a good mathematician and musician ; and so 
rarely endow'd by nature, that had he bin but honestly 
principled, he might have bin highly useful to that party, 



252 LIFE OF MILTON. 

against which he all along appear'd with much malice 
and bitterness.' " 

In Jonathan Richardson's edition of his poetical 
works, it is stated, " He seems to have had but little re- 
gard to the exterior of religion. We hear of nothing of 
that even in his last hours ; and whatever he did in the 
former part of his life, he frequented no public worship 
in his latter years, nor attended to any in his own little 
family. 

" He had a gravity in his temper not melancholy, and, 
not till the latter part of his life, not sour, morose, or ill- 
natured ; but a certain serenity of mind, a mind not con- 
descending to little things. 

" His fervour of mind was most ardent, but not unre- 
strainable when 'twas evident it could be to no good pur- 
pose ; for, after the Restoration, he no more engaged in 
the old disputes. He had given sufficient proofs of his 
courage in former times ; but even now he scorned to 
flatter power, as many did : the same honesty was seen 
in him ; his old principles were well known to continue ; 
they are seen even in Paradise Lost." 

It is astonishing that so much should have been made 
by his biographers (none of whom have been of his reli- 
gious principles, and therefore could not form a proper 
idea of his manner of life) " of his frequenting no public 
worship," and founding, upon that supposed^ac^, that he 
had no regard for religion. No one, who reads his life 
impartially, will hesitate a moment in concluding that he 
was a religious man of the highest grade of excellence ; 
and if they were to consider, that the sects with which he 
associated had but very few, if any, places of public wor- 
ship until 1672, meeting privately from house to house, on 
account of persecution, this may serve to solve the pro. 
blem, how such a man as the writer of " Paradise Lost" 



LIFE OF MILTON. 



253 



should not have frequented anyplace "of public wor- 
ship." If, indeed, by "place of public worship," is in- 
tended the parish churches, it is very true ; but that is no 
more than may be said of several millions of Britons now 
— the Protestant Dissenters and Methodists. 

And as to his not attending to any " worship in his 
family," it is most likely this means nothing more than 
that he used no prescribed form, or the " peculiar rites" 
of the national church. And as to his " seeming to have 
had but little regard to the exterior of religion in his last 
hours," I suppose this only means, from the pen of a 
churchman, that he did not send for a clergyman to give 
him the sacrament, and pronounce the absolution service ! 

His widow sold the copyright of " Paradise Lost," which 
had devolved upon her, to Simmons, for eight pounds. 
Her receipt is dated December 21st, 1680 ; and a gene- 
ral release from all further claim is dated April 29th , 
1681.* 

She spent her last days at Namptwich, in Cheshire, 
where she was a member of the Baptist church ; and 
died about 1729. 

The following are the brief directions which Milton 
gave to his brother Christopher, respecting his will, about 
the 20th of July, 1674. " Brother, the portion due 
to me from Mr. Powell, my first wife's father, I leave to 
the unkind children I had by her ; but I have received 
no part of it ; and my will and meaning is they have 
no other benefit from my estate than the said portion, and 
what I have besides done for them, they having been very 

* Simmons covenanted to transfer the right to Rrabazon Aylmer, for 
twenty-five pounds. Aylmer sold half of it to Jacob Tonson, August 17th, 
1683, and the other moiety, March 24th, 1690, at a price considerably ad- 
vanced; and twenty-eight pounds in thirteen years, was all that the poei 
and his widow obtained for this great work. 



254 LIFE OF MILTON. 

undutiful to me ; and all the residue of ray estate 1 leave 
to the disposal of Elizabeth, my loving wife." 

This will was contested by his daughters, whose undu- 
tiful conduct it condemned : being deficient in form, it was 
set aside, and letters of administration were granted to the 
widow, who is said to have allotted a hundred pounds to 
each daughter. 

Dr. Johnson has described Milton as a cruel father, 
without any evidence. 

" Milton's youngest daughter," says Richardson, 
" spoke of her father with great tenderness : she said — 
' he was dehghtful company, the life of the conversation, 
and that on account of a flow of subject, and an unaffect- 
ed cheerfulness and civility.' " 

Of the other daughters it is recorded, that Ann the 
eldest, with a deformed person, married an architect, and 
died with her first infant in child-bed. Mary, the second, 
died unmarried. Deborah married Mr. Clark, a weaver 
in Spitalfields : she died in 1727, aged seventy-six. As 
her family was numerous, and also poor, Addison made 
her a present, and Glueen Caroline presented her with 
fifty guineas. In the year 1750, Comus was acted at one 
of the theatres, as a benefit for one of Mrs. Clark's daugh- 
ters, Mrs. Elizabeth Forster, who had been found by Dr. 
Birch and Dr. Newton, two of the biographers of her il- 
lustrious grandfather, keeping a little chandler's shop in 
the city, poor, aged, and infirm. One hundred and thirty 
pounds were thus gained to her and her family, a husband 
and seven children : these all died before their mother, 
and by her own death it is probable the line of Milton 
became extinct. 

The sister of Milton, Anne, was married, with a consid- 
erable fortune, to Edward Philips, who came from Shrews- 
bury and rose in the crown office to be secondary : by him 



LIFE OF MILTOX. 255 

she had two sons, John and Edward, who were educated 
by the poet, and from whom is derived the only authentic 
account of his life and manners. 

His brother, Christopher, " studied the law, and ad- 
hered," says Johnson, " as the law taught him, to the 
king's party, for which he was for a while persecuted ; 
but having, hy his brother ^s interest, obtained permission 
to live in quiet, he supported himself so honourably by 
chamber practice, that soon after the accession of King 
James II. he was knighted, and made a judge ; but his 
constitution being too weak for business, he retired, be- 
fore any disreputable compliances became necessary." 
It is wonderful Dr. Johnson had not considered that " the 
law taught him to adhere" to the popish king's party too! ! 

The following letter, copied from the original in the 
British Museum, which has not, I believe, till now been 
printed, relates to Mrs. Deborah Clark : — 

"Mr. George Vertue to Mr. Charles Christian." 

*' Mr. Christian, 

" Pray inform my Lord Henley that I have on 
Thursday last seen the daughter of Milton the poet. I 
carried with me two or three different prints of Milton's 
picture, which she immediately knew to be like her fa- 
ther ; and told me her mother-in-law, living in Cheshire, 
had two pictures of him, one when he was a school-boy, 
and the other when about twenty. She knows of no oth- 
er picture of him, because she was several years in Ire- 
land, both before and after his death. She was the 
youngest of Milton's daughters by his first wife, and was 
taught to read to her father several languages. 

" Mr. Addison was desirous of seeing her once, and 
desired she would bring with her testimonials of her 



256 LIFE OF MILTON. 

being Milton's daughter. But as soon as she came into 
the room he told her she needed none, her face having 
much of the Ukeness of the pictures he had seen of him. 

"For my part, I find the features of her face very much 
like the prints. I shewed her the painting I have to en- 
grave, which she believes not to be her father's picture, 
it being of a brown complexion, and black hair, and curl- 
ed locks. On the contrary, he was of a fair complexion, 
a little red in his cheeks, and light brown, lank hair. 

" I desire you would acquaint Mr. Prior I was so unfor- 
tunate to wait on him on Thursday morning, but just after 
he was gone out of town. It was the intent to inquire 
of him, if he remembers a picture of Milton in the late 
Lord Dorset's collection, as I am told there was ; or if he 
can inform me how I shall inquire or know the truth of this 
affair. I should be much obliged to him, being very wil- 
ling to have all certainty on that account, before I proceed 
to engrave the plate, that it may be the more satisfactory to 
the public as well as myself. The sooner you communi- 
cate this, the better, because I want to resolve, which I 
can't well do till I have an answer, which will much oblige 
" Your friend to command, 

" George Vertue. 

" Saturday^ August I2th, 1721." 

In the year 1793, by the munificence of Mr. Whitbread, 
father of the late Samuel Whitbread, Esq. M. P. an ani- 
mated marble bust, the sculpture of Bacon, under which 
is a plain tablet, recording the dates of the poet's birth and 
of his decease, was erected in the middle aisle of St. 
Giles's church, Cripplegate, with the inscription — To tlie 
Author of Paradise Lost, A similar tribute of respect had 
been paid in 1737 by Mr. Benson, who procured his bust 
to be admitted into Westminster Abbey, where once his 
name had been considered a profanation. 



LIFE OP MILTON. 257 

The attentive reader will have observed several pas- 
sages in Milton's writings, which prove him to have 
been, in regard to his sentiments, an orthodox Trinita- 
rian ; and this he had avowed himself to be in his last 
publication. Within the last ten years, a Latin manu- 
script has been discovered in the State Paper Office, 
bearing his name, and various internal marks of genuine- 
ness, which contains sentiments at variance with that 
opinion. By the command of his late majesty, George 
IV. this work was translated and published in 1825, en- 
titled, " A Treatise of Christian Doctrine, compiled from 
the Holy Scriptures alone. By John Milton. Trans- 
lated from the original by Charles R. Sumner, M. A.' 
quarto. All his religious sentiments, published by him 
self in his life-time, are repeated and confirmed in this 
treatise, excepting those chapters which treat " Of the 
Son of God," and ^' Of the Holy Spirit." I apprehend, 
had he followed, as he professes to do, " the doctrine of 
Holy Scripture exclusively," and have " discarded reason 
in sacred matters," (p. 89,) he would have arrived at a 
very different conclusion, than to have asserted, that the 
Son of God, though endued with the divine nature and 
substance, was yet distinct from, and inferior to, the Fa« 
ther, receiving from the Father every thing in his filial as 
well as his mediatorial character. It will be seen that 
these sentiments ascribe to the Son as high a share of 
divinity as was compatible with the rejection of his self- 
existence and eternal generation, and the denial of his 
co-equality and co-essentiality with the Father. To show 
how loosely he reasons upon the plain statements of in- 
spired truth, both of the Old and New Testament writers, 
I will quote his commentary on Heb. i. 8. " Unto the 
Son, or of the Son" he saith, " Thy throne, O God, is for 
ever and ever. But in the next verse it follows, Thou hast 
23 



258 LIFE OF MILTON. 

loved righteousness y &lc. therefore God, even thy God, hath 
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows, 
where almost every word indicates the sense in which 
Christ is here termed God ; and the words of Jehovah, put 
into the mouth of the bridal virgins, Ps. xlv. might have 
been more properly quoted by this writer for any other 
purpose, than to prove that the Son is co-equal with the 
Father, since they are originally applied to Solomon, to 
whom, as properly as to Christ, the title of God might 
have been given on account of his kingly power, con- 
formably to the language of Scripture." To say nothing 
of the way in which he treats an inspired author, I merely 
remark, how different is this statement, both as to its 
spirit and sentiments, to the following stanza in the " Ode 
on the Morning of Christ's Nativity," written, according 
to Warton, as a college exercise, at the age of twenty^ 
one : — 

"That glorious form, that light unsufferable. 

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty. 

Whereas he wont at heaven's high council-table 

To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, 

He laid aside ; and here with us to be, 

Forsook the courts of everlasting day, 

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay." 

His chapter " Of the Holy Spirit," for the purpose 
of disproving that proper divinity and distinct personality 
are attributed to the Spirit of God, thus concludes : — 
" Lest, however, any should ask who or what the Holy 
Spirit is, although Scripture no where teaches us in ex- 
press terms, it may be collected from the passages quoted 
above, that the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as he is a minister 
of God, and therefore a creature, was created, or pro- 
duced, of the substance of God, not by a natural ne- 
cessity, but by the forewill of the agent, probably before 



LIFE OF MILTON. 259 

the foundations of the world were laid, but later than the 
Son, and far inferior to him. It will be objected, that 
thus the Holy Spirit is not sufficiently distinguished from 
the Son. I reply, that the scriptural expressions them- 
selves, to come forth, to go out from the Father, to proceed 
from the Father, which mean the same in Greek, do not 
distinguish the Son from the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as 
these terms are used indiscriminately with reference to 
both persons, and signify their mission, not their nature. 
There is, however, sufficient reason for placing the name 
as well as the nature of the Son, above that of the Holy 
Spirit, in discussion of topics relative to the Deity; inas- 
much as the brightness of the glory of God, and the ex- 
press image of his person, are said to have been im- 
pressed on the one, and not on the other," p. 171. In 
this statement does he not lose himself, in attempting 
what is said to be impossible ? '' Who can by searching 
find out GodV 

The serious reader will, it is hoped, not be led away 
by the influence of even Milton's name upon this all- 
important subject ; but be induced to search the Scrip- 
tures as the only authoritative tribunal. The various 
epithets given to the Spirit of God, as Holy, Good, &;c 
&;c. clearly point out his nature and operations ; while 
the personal pronouns by which he is described, prove 
that the Spirit cannot be a mere quality of the Deity, but 
one of the three Persons in the Godhead. 

With much greater pleasure than I have found in 
quoting the former extracts, I give a f&w from the chap- 
ter entitled, " Of Man's Restoration, and of Christ 
as a Redeemer." He says, "In this restoration are 
comprized, the redemption and renovation of man.'' He 
thus defines this subject ; " Redemption is that act where- 
by Christ, being sent in the fulness of time, redeemed all be- 



260 LIFE OF MILTON. 

lievers at the price of his own blood, by his own voluntar y act 
conformably to the eternal counsel and grace of God the 
Father.'' 

After having insisted upon the pre-existence of Christ, 
as the Son of God, he says, " This incarnation of Christ, 
whereby he, being God, took upon him the human nature, 
and was made flesh, without thereby ceasing to be numeri- 
cally the same as before, is generally considered by theo- 
logians as, next to the Trinity in Unity, the greatest mys- 
tery of our religion. Of the mystery of the Trinity, how- 
ever, no mention is made in Scripture ; whereas the in- 
carnation is frequently called by that name." 

Again, in the chapter entitled, " Of the functions of the 
Mediator, and his threefold office,'" he remarks, " Christ's 
sacerdotal office is that whereby he once offered himself 
to God the Father as a sacrifice for sinners, and has al- 
ways made, and still continues to make, intercession for us.'' 

Many other extracts of a similar kind might have been 
made, but the reader, if he wishes, can consult the work 
for himself. It affords me real pleasure to quote with 
entire satisfaction the following remarks of the Bishop 
of Chester : " With respect to the cardinal doctrine of 
the atonement, the opinions of Milton are expressed 
throughout in the strongest and most unqualified manner. 
No attentive reader of Paradise Lost can have failed to 
remark, that the poem is constructed on the fundamental 
principle that the sacrifice of Christ was strictly vicarious ; 
that not only was man redeemed, but a real price, ' life 
for life,' was paid for his redemption. The same system 
will be found fully and unequivocally maintained in this 
treatise ; and much as it is to be regretted that it cannot 
be said, in the author's own words elsewhere of the Son 
of God, as delineated in the following pages, th at 

'In him all his Father shone 
Substantially express'd." 



LIFE OF MILTON. 261 

yet the translator rejoices in being able to state, that the 
doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ is so scripturally and 
unambiguously enforced, as to leave on that point nothing 
to be desired." Miltox " gloried in the cross of Christ." 
It will be recollected how strongly Milton, in his work 
on " The likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the 
Church," spoke of the unscriptural mode of paying the 
clergy by tithes. In this work also it is said : '' To ex- 
act or bargain for tithes, or other stipendary payments 
under the gospel, to extort them from the flock under the 
alleged authority of civil edicts, or to have recourse to 
civil actions and legal processes for the recovery of al- 
lowances purely ecclesiastical, is the part of wolves ra- 
ther than of the ministers of the gospel." Acts xx. 29. 

In his History of Britain, he quotes to the same effect 
Gildas's character of the Saxon clergy : " Subtle prowlers, 
pastors in name, but indeed wolves ; intent upon all oc- 
casions, not to feed the flocks, but to pamper and well- 
line themselves." 

It having been stated that Milton was of the Baptist 
denomination, the following extract is made in confirma- 
tion : " Under tlie gospel, the first of the sacraments com- 
monly .so called is baptism, wherein the bodies of believers 
who engage themselves to newness of life are immersed in 
running water, ^ to signify their regeneration by the Holy 
Spirit, and their union with Christ in his death, burial, and 
resurrection." 

From this statement he argues : " Hence it follows that 
infants are not to be baptized, inasmuch as they are in- 
competent to receive instruction, or to believe, or to enter 
into a covenant, or answer for themselves, or even to hear 
the word. For how can infants, who understand not the 

♦There were at that time no baptisteries : the Baptists used the rivers 
as their fonts. 

23* 



262 LIFE OF MILTON. 

word, be purified thereby, any more than adults can re- 
ceive edification by hearing an unknown language ? For 
it is not that outward baptism, which purifies only the filth 
of the flesh, which saves us, hut the answer of a good con- 
science, as Peter testifies ; of which infants are incapable. 
Besides, baptism is not merely a covenant, containing a 
stipulation on one side, with a corresponding engagement 
on the other, which in the case of an infant is impossible ; 
but it is also a vow, and as such can neither be pronounced 
by infants, nor required of them. It is remarkable to 
what futile arguments those divines have recourse who 
maintain the contrary opinions." 

" Immersion. It is in vain alleged by those who, on 
the authority of Mark vii. 4, Luke xi. 38, have introduced 
the practice of affusion in baptism, instead of immersion, 
that to dip and sprinkle mean the same thing ; since in 
washing we do not sprinkle the hands, but immerse them." 
The opinions of Milton in regard to the capital doc- 
trine of the Trinity, as contained in this manuscript, are 
so utterly at variance with those on the same subject in 
the works published by himself, that it is difficult to con- 
ceive how both could have proceeded from the same pen 
Admitting, however, that the " Treatise of Christian Doc- 
trine," which is without any date, was dictated by him, 
(and for that conclusion there are certainly very strong 
reasons,) at what period of his life could it have been 
written ? It should seem it must have been subsequent 
to the publicationof his Paradise Lost in 1666 ; for were 
it written sooner, surely that work could not have con- 
tained the sublime sentiments which are applied to the 
Son of God and to the Holy Spirit. And yet, upon that 
supposition, it must consequently have been during the 
last eight years of his life, but then how can we account 
for hia having asserted in 1674, in his last work, that 



LIFE OF MILTON. 263 

'' the doctrine of the Trinity is a plain doctrine in Scrip- 
ture ?" In fact, this manuscript is involved in mystery . 
but supposing the possibility of its genuineness, I am in- 
clined to adopt a remark applied to the seraphic and pious 
Dr. Watts, in reference to the gigantic Milton, that " he 
had studied the doctrine of the Trinity, as some Indian de- 
votees are said to have contemplated the sun, till their own 
sight was darkened." Affecting instances these, ofthe errors 
into which the most powerful minds might be led, if they 
are not satisfied to recieve the mysteries of the gospel, as 
matters to be believed upon the authority of divine inspi- 
ration, and not to be explained by the feeble and darkened 
reason of fallen nature, Happy would it have been for 
these two great men, had they been influenced in all their 
reasonings on the nature and perfections of Jehovah, by 
the sentiment and spirit of the following most admirable 
couplet : — 

'' Where reason fails, with all her powers, 
There /ati!A prevails, and love adores."* 

Watts. 

It is a very remarkable feature in the history of some 
of the most eminent men whom God has raised up for 
usefulness in his church, that they should have lived long 
enough to have exhibited in their old age such remarkable 
proofs of imbecility, as to prove that the best of men are 
not perfect, either in grace or in knowledge ; and that 
" no man should glory in men." Such men as Cranmer, 
and Watts, and Milton, might have been supposed to be a 
kind of super-human beings, not partaking of the weak- 
nesses and infirmities of men in general : but who that 

* As to the history of the finding of this manuscript in the State Paper 
Office, I must refer the reader to the Preface to the translation, and to 
Todd's Account of Milton, publiahed in 1826. 



264 LIFE OF MILTON. 

are acquainted with the aberrations and folly which they 
manifested, but will unite in the truth of that trite maxim, 
" The best of men are but men at the best ;" or of this, 
" All is not good that good men do, nor wise that wise 
men say." Such things, whether recorded by the pen of 
inspiration, or of common history, are written for our 
learning, not for our imitation, but for our admonition, to 
the intent we should " trust in the Lord with all ourheart," 
and not to " lean to our own understanding," as they evi- 
dently did. In regard to matters of faith, we are taught 
in various ways "not to call any man master, because 
one is our master, even Christ." 

Such was my veneration for the character of Milton, 
before I read this " Treatise of Christian Doctrine," that 
I had placed him, as a theologian, in the first rank of un- 
inspired men : I acknowledge my high opinion of him has 
been greatly lowered, and I could weep over him on ac- 
count of his having ventured to use his pen to lower the 
dignity of my Divine Lord, of whom it is written, " That 
all men should honour the Son even as they honour the 
Father;" but how can that be done, without attributing 
to the Son the same divine attributes, honours, and wor- 
ship, which we pay to the Father ? No one, who has paid 
any serious attention to these subjects, but ought to con- 
fess there are as great, or greater, difficulties connected 
with every scheme which has been adopted to make them 
plain to human reason, as with that which implicitly be- 
lieves them. That the Son and Spirit, as well as the 
Father, have divine and personal perfections, and works, 
ascribed to them in Scripture, cannot be doubted — that 
the Unity of Jehovah is also plainly stated in the oracles 
of truth is incontrovertible — but the manner in which these 
three equal persons make one Jehovah, is not revealed. 
I consider, however, that revealed doctrines, though mys- 



LIFE OF MILTON. 265 

teries, are to be received, because they are revealed ; 
and because, if they are rejected on the account of their 
being irreconcileable to reason, the Bible is invalidated as 
the sole umpire in matters of religion ; and consequently, 
that we are left without a standard by which to judge be- 
tween truth and error. I certainly should be pleased, 
could any one furnish irrefragable evidence that the manu- 
script entitled, "Treatise of Christian Doctrine," was not 
written by the eminent man whose ^^ superscription,^^* but 
not whose " image,^^ is stamped upon it. 

My opinion respecting the unimpeachable integrity of 
Milton's character, and the unequalled powers of his 
mind, remains unaltered : as a stern patriot, an ardent 
lover of his country — as an enlightened Christian, con- 
tending for the unalienable birthright of conscience in 
matters of religion — as a zealous Protestant, defending 
the doctrines of the Reformation, and as a genuine be- 
liever, " careful to maintain good works ;" I consider him 
as having realized and exemplified his devout wish men- 
tioned in a former part of this work, " As for me, 

MY WISH IS TO LIVE AND TO DIE AN HONEST MaN." 

* It deserves remark, the name of Milton prefixed, nor is the manu- 
script in his own hand-writing. 



266 

THE FOLLOWING IS COPIED FROM TOLAND'S LIFE. 



AN EXACT CATALOGUE OF ALL MILTON'S WORKS, IN THEIR 
TRUE ORDER, 

I. Of Reformation in England, and the Causes that hitherto have hinder'd it. In 
two Books : written to a Friend. 

■2. Of Prelatical Episcopacy, and whether it can be deduc'd from the Apostolical 
Times. 

3. The Reason of Church Government urg'd ajainst Prelacy. In two Books. 

4. Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnuus, 
•'5. An Apology for Smectymnuus. 

6. The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce restor'd for the Good of both Sexes. 

7. Tetrachordon ; or Expositions upon the four chief places of Scripture which 
treat of 3Iarriage, or Nullities in Marriage. 

5. The Judgment of Martin BucEB concerning Divorce. 

9. Colasterion ; a Reply to a nameless Answer against the Doctrine and Discipline 
of Divorce. 

10. Of Education, to Mr. Samuel Haetlib. 

II. Areopagitica : a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicens'd Printing, to the Parlia- 
ment of England. 

12. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrats, proving that it is lawful to call a Tyrant 
to account, and to despose or put him to death. 

13. Eikonoclastes, in answer to a Book entltul'd, Eikon Basilike. 

14. Observations on Ormond's Articles of Peace with the Irish, his letter to Colo- 
nel Jones, and on the Representation of the Presbytery of Belfast. 

15. Defencio pro Populo Anglicano, or his Defence of the People of England, against 
Salmasics's Defence of the King. 

16. Joannis Philipi Responsioad Apologiam Anonymi cujusdam. 

17. Defensio secunda pro Populo Anglicano, &c. 
IS. Defensio pro se adversus Alexandrum Morum . 

19. A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes. 

20. Considerations touching the likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the 
Church. 

21. A letter to a Friend concerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth. 

22. The brief Delineation of a Commonwealth. 

23. Brief Njtes on Dr. Griffith's Sermon, entitul'd. The Fear of God and the 
King. 

24. The ready and easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth, and the Excel- 
lence thereof compar'd with the Dangers and Inconveniences of readmitting 
Kingship in this Nation. 

25. Paradise Lost. 

26. Paradise Regain'd, and Sampson Agonistes. 

27. Occasional and Juvenil Poems, English and Latin. 
23. The History of Britain to the Norman Conquest. 

29. Accedence commenc'd Grammar. 

30. A brief History of Muscovy. 

31. A Declaration of the Election of John HI. King of Poland. 

32. Anis Logicje plenior Institutio ad Petri Rami methodum concinnata. 

33. A Treatise of true Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the best Means to 
prevent the growth of Popery. 

34. Litterae Senatus Anglicana, &c. or Letters of State. 

3.5. Epi.stolarum familiarum liber unus ; accesserunt Prolusiones qujedorn Oratoriro 



267 



ANIMADVERSIONS 



DR. JOHNSON'S LIFE OF MILTON. 



This most illiberal writer intimates at the commencement of his Life 
of Milton, that instead of writing a new life, 

" he might perhaps more properly have contented himself with the addition of a few 
notes to Mr. Fenton's, which had been previously written." 

It would have been well for the interests of truth had he sternly 
adhered to that opinion, as there perhaps never was so flagrant an in- 
stance of downright misrepresentation and perversion of facts, for the 
mean purpose of caricaturing and distorting the features of a public 
man, than in Johnson's Life of Milton ; a foul blot on English biogra- 
phy, a lasting disgrace to the man who could lend himself to such 
baseness. 

It appears to me impossible to account for the venomous attack 
which he has made upon this most illustrious of our countrymen, but 
on the supposition that he was influenced by the same malignant feel- 
ings and principles of Jacob's sons towards Joseph : " His brethren 
hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him; moved with envy 
they'sold him into Egypt." Dr. Johnson hated Milton, because he 
had published principles in regard to civil and religious liberty which 
Johnson was not capable of appreciating either their truth or their 
excellence. Did he not envy him on account of the superiority of his 
learning, talents, and fame? Not, it should seem, from any conscious- 
ness of his inferiority to him in either, but from knowing that if his 
own name should happen to be mentioned at the same time with Mil- 
ton, it would only be for the purpose of its being used as a foil to set 
ofFhis rival's pre-eminent knowledge and benevolence. There never 
was probably a more correct exemplification of Solomon's maxim than 



268 ANIMADVERSIONS ON 

in Johnson's Life of Milton: "Anger is cruel, and wrai^ is vexa- 
tious ; but w^ho is able to stand before envy ?" 

In his first paragraph, speaking of one of Milton's progenitors, 
who had forfeited his estate in the times of York and Lancaster, he 
adds, 

' Which side he took I know not ; his descendant inherited no veneration for the 
White Rose."* 

How soon his bile exudes ! The thought of popular liberty strug- 
gling with jure divino tyranny shakes his nerves, disturbs his spirits, 
so that he cannot speak even of a remote predecessor of Milton with- 
out an expression of his indignant hatred of the man who could ven- 
ture to investigate the " tenure of kings and magistrates," and to write 
in vindication of the execution of a monarch who had been convicted 
of murdering the the subjects whom he had sworn to protect ! 

Speaking of the brother of Milton, he adds, 

"And Christopher, who studied the law, and adhered as the law taught him to 
the king's party, for which he was awhile persecuted."t 

It is the common law, Dr. Johnson, that you mean ? Even that 
supposes that in return for the subject paying taxes for the support of 
royalty, he is to enjoy in return the protection of the state. It is the 
law of habeas corpus, which secures to all who were not villiens equal 
rights ? O no. Dr. Johnson must have known, that whatever blind 
superstition might have taught him as to passive obedience and non- 
resistance, that the spirit of English law taught men the love of free- 
dom, and that civil or religious liberty were their inalienable birth- 
right, though they had been robbed of it by despotic rulers. 

He adds. 

" But having, by his brother's [the poet's] interest, obtained permission to live in 
juiet, he supported himself so honourably by chamber practice, that soon after the 
accession of King James, he was knighted, and made a judge ; but his constitution 
being too weak for business, he retired before any disreputable compliances be.' 
came necessary.'''* 

It appears, from this sentence, that Dr. Johnson would have justi- 
fied the non-resistance of the seven bishops whom James the Second 
sent to the Tower for their contumacy. " I should not," said his po- 
pish majesty, " have expected this from you /" Nor should I have 
thought that the ultra tory, Dr. Johnson, would have considered any 
obedience to the command of a king a disreputable compliance. Is-not 
tyranny the same, whether exercised in regard to religion or civil 
rights? And I more than suspect, had Dr. Johnson been a judge, as 

* Johnson's Work^', vol vi. p. 84. t Ibid. p. 85. X lb. p, S4, 



DR. Johnson's life qf milton. 269 

was Sir Christopher Milton, if he would not have united with James's 
judges, of disgraceful memory, who declared " the laios to be the king^s 
laws ;''^ and have justified his conduct by saying, that the laws taught 
him "subjection to the higher powers !" I am reminded of one law- 
yer of this period, who was, in his opinions, the complete opposite to 
Dr. Johnson. When old Sergeant Maynard waited with his congra_ 
tulations on William'the Third, the king remarked to him, ",You 
must have outlived all your cotemporaries in the law." " May it 
please your majesty," replied the constitutional lawyer, " and I should 
have outlived the laws themselves, but for the happy arrival and glo- 
rious success of your majesty.'- 
Dr. Johnson then proceeds : 

='He [Milton] went to the university, with a design of entering into the church, 
but in time altei'ed his mind ; for he declared, that whoever became a clergyman 
must 'subscribe s^are, and take an oath withal, that unless he took with a con- 
science that could retch, he must straight perjure himself.' He thought it better 
to prefer a blameless silence before the office of speaking, bought and begun with 
the practice of forswearing. These expressions are, I find, applied to the subscrip- 
tion to the Articles ; but it seems more probable that they relate to canonical obe- 
dience. I know not any of the Articles which seem to thwart his opinions ; but the 
thoughts of obedience, wheiher canonical or civil, raised his indignation."* 

It would seem that it was Milton's refusal to subscribe ex animo 
to articles which he did not believe, and to canons which he dared 
not swear he would implicitly obey, which raised the indignation ot 
Dr. Johnson !" But must not the Dr. have known some of the Arti- 
cles which seemed to thwart his opinions? I am sure the Twentieth 
Article, entitled, "Of the authority of the Church," more than seemed 
to do so! "The Church hath power to decree rights or ceremonies, 
and authority in controversies of faith."t I am quite certain the 
Eighth Article thwarted his opinions, entitled, " Of the Three Creeds." 
" The three creeds, Nice Creed, Athanasius Creed, and that which is 
commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be receiv- 
ed and believed ; for they may be proved by most certain warrant of 
the Holy Scripture." The Twenty-third, entitled, " Of administering 
to the Congregation," more than seemed to thwart his opinion : — "It 
is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preach- 
ing, or ministering the sacraments in the congregation, before he be 

* Johnson's Works, vol. vi. p. 90. 

t This sentence, which is the key-stone of the arch by which the Established 
Church is supported, was added no one knows ichen, or by whom ; but it is most 
likely, had it been dove-tailed on by the authorityof the queen as head of the church, 
eome historian or other would have mentioned it. It is not in King Edward's Ar- 
ticles, and I have no doubt is of surreptitious origin ! ! 

24 



270 ANIMADVERSIONS OM 

lawfully called and sent to execute the same. And those we ought 
to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this 
work by men who have pubUc authority given unto them in the con- 
gregation, to call and send ministers into the Lord's vineyard." The 
Twenty-seventh Article, " Of Baptism," entirely thwarted his opin- 
ions : — " Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of differ- 
ence, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not 
christened; but is a sign o^ regeneration, or new birth, whereby, as an 
instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the 
church ; the promises of the forgiveness of sins, of our adoption to be 
the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed ; 
faith is confirmed, and grace increased, by virtue of prayer unto God. 
The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the 
church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ." In king 
Edward's Articles, published in 1552, number Twenty-eight, the last 
clause thus reads : "The custom of the church, to christen young chil- 
dren, is to be commended, and in any wise to be retained in the churchy 
In this Article, too, the term " regeneration'''' is not used in reference 
to the baptism of infants ! ! 

I am certain the Thirty-fourth Article, entitled, " Of the Traditions 
of the Church," thwarted his opinions entirely: "It is not necessary 
that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly alike, for 
at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to 
the diversity of countries, and men's manners, so that nothing be or- 
dained against God's word. Whosoever, through his private judg- 
ment, wilUngly and purposely doth openly break the traditions and 
ceremonies of the church, which be not repugnant to the word of God, 
and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be re- 
buked openly, (that others may fear to do the like,) as one that offend- 
eth against the common order of the church, and hurteththe authority 
of the magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of weak brethren. 
* Every particular or national church, hath authority to ordain, change, 
and abolish ceremonies or rites of the church, ordained only by men's 
authority, so that all things be done to edifying.' " The last sentence 
in quotation marks, is not in king Edward's Article, number Thirty- 
three ! ! 

I might instance other Articles, as number Thirty-six, entitled, " Of 
Consecration of Bishops and Ministers ;" number Thirty-seven, en- 
titled, "Of Civil Magistrates." In king Edward's Article it is as- 
serted, " The king of England is supreme head in earth, next under 
Christ, of the Church of England and Ireland." In queen Elizabeth's 



tiR. JOHNSON*S LIFE OP MILTON, 271 

it is thus stated, 'Supreme headship of the first civil magistrate next 
under Christ," &c. &c. and much changed ; for which alteration the 
reason is assigned, because the compilers say they had understood the 
*' fti/es" which they had attribued to the queen's majesty had " of- 
fended the minds of some dangerous folks," [John Fox, the martyr- 
ologist, Thomas Cartwright, and hundreds of godly ministers besides 
them, to say nothing of " the congregation of faithful men."] " The 
queen's majesty hath the chief power in this realm of England, Sind 
other her dominions, unto whom the chief government of all estates of 
this realm, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, in all causes doth 
appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign jurisdic- 
tion." "Where we attribute to the queen's majesty the chief govern- 
ment, by which titles we understand the minds of some dangerous 
folks to be offended : we give not to our princes the ministering either 
of God's word, or of the sacraments, the which thing the Injunctions 
also lately set forth by Elizabeth our queen, do most plainly testify ; 
but that only prerogative which we see to have been given always to 
all godly princes in Holy Scripture by God himself, that is, that they 
should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, 
whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain with the civil 
sword the stubborn and evil doers."* 

I appeal to the candid reader, who is acquainted with the religious 
opinions of Milton, whether all the above Articles are not in direct 
opposition toto ccelo to those which he has so powerfully maintained. 
An ingenuous mind would instead of censuring Milton for refusing 
to subscribe what he did not beUeve, as, by so doing, he would have 
committed perjury, and that too in regard to matters of " truth, con- 
science, and God," have expressed regret that the Articles of the 
Church were so framed, and the demand of subscription so rigid, that 
such a good and great man as Milton should not have been able to 
undertake the office of minister in it, when he had gone to the univer- 
sity with that design! With his sentiments of religious liberty, and 
the inalienable right of private judgment, and the sufficiency of the 
Scriptures alone for all purposes of doctrine and discipline, and espe- 
cially of the sole headship of Jesus Christ in his church; would it not 
have been, I appeal to all unprejudiced minds, and even those of the 
Church of England, whether it would not have been for Milton to 

* It was not long before the prelates had an opportunity of discovering ho\r dis- 
creetly the queen would use this jure divino prerogative. Grlndal having expos- 
tulated with her majesty, requesting her to mind civil matters, and leave the eccle- 
siastical to the bishops, was deprived, or, as the queen elegantly expressed it, she 
" unfrocked him /" 



27^ ANIMADVERSIONS OK 

have "subscribed slave," had he become a clergyman ? And was it 
not more honourable to his oven character, however injurious to the 
interests of the community at large, " to prefer a blameless silence be- 
fore the office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and for- 
swearing ?" Dr. Johnson ought to have given him credit too for 
having exempted those subscribing clergymen from the charge of^cr- 
jitry, " ivho had consciences that could retch /" 

Dr. Johnson's qu^stioning the truth of Milton's statement, that 
the reason why he did not become a clergyman was, because he 
could not ex animo subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles ; but that his 
chief objection was to the canons, is not creditable even to his liberal- 
ity ! He says : 

"It seems more probable his objection related to canonical obodience ; tJie 
thoughts of obedience, whether canonical or civil, raised his indignation." 

The fact is, that he also objected to swear entire and uncomprom- 
ising obedience to the canons as well as to the Articles : he refused 
" to subscribe slave, and take an oath withal," to observe human reg- 
ulations in matters of religion. But does it follow, that because he 
would not voluntarily lay himself under an obligation to obey sta- 
tutes which he was not otherwise bound to observe, that he felt repug- 
nant to render the civil obedience which, as a subject, he owed to the 
state. Is it not perfectly compatible to object to submit to ecclesiasti- 
cal domination, and to render cheerful obedience to the constitutional 
aws? MiLTON^could distinguish, if Dr. Johnson could not. between 
canonical and civil obedience : he refused to submit himself to the 
former, but his life affords no instance of his objecting to the latter. 

Let us suppose that Milton, in the prospect of entering the estab- 
lishment, even if he had not anticipated the possibility of becoming 
a bishop or archbishop, yet that he might have become a dean or 
batchelor of divinity and laws, he would of course first read over 
seriously (if he could have preserved his gravity) the following : 

^'^ Articles of outward apparel of persons ecclesiastical. 

" First, That all archbishops and bishops do use and continue their 
accustomed apparel, 

" Item, That all deans of cathedral churches, masters of colleges, 
archdeacons, and other dignitaries in cathedral churches: doctors, 
bachelors of divinity and law, having any ecclesiastical living, shall 
M'ear, in their common apparel, a tide gown, with sleeves straight at the 
hand, withoxd any cuts in the same. And that also unthout any falling 
cape ; and to toear tippets of sarcenet, as is lawful for them by that act of 
Parliament, Anno 24, Henrii Octavi. 



DR. Johnson's life of milton. 273 

" /tern, That all doctors of physic, or of any other faculty, having 
any living ecclesiastical, or any other that may dispend by the church 
one hundred marks so to be esteemed by the fruits as tenths of their 
promotions'; and all prebendaries whose living's be valued at twenty 
pound a year or upward, wear the same apparel. 

" Itemj That they and all ecclesiastical persons, or other having 
any ecclesiastical living, do loear the cap appointed by the Injunctions, 
and they to v)ear no hat but in their journeying. 

" Item, That they in their journeying do wear their cloaks with 
sleeves put on, and like in fashion to their gowns, gards, welts, or 
cuts. 

"Item, That in their private houses and studies, they use their 
own liberty of comely apparel. 

''Item, That all inferior ecclesiastical persons shall wear long 
gowns of the fashion aforesaid, and caps as afore prescribed. 

" Item, That all poor parsons, vicars, and curates, do endeavour 
themselves to conform their apparel in like sort, so soon and as con- 
veniently as their ability will serve to the same. Provided that their 
ability be judged by the bishop of the diocese. And if their ability 
will not suffer them to buy them long gowns of the form afore prescri- 
bed, that then they shall wear their short gowns, agreeable to the 
form before expressed. 

''Item, That all such persons as have been, or be, ecclesiastical, 
and serve not in the ministry, or have not accepted, or shall refuse to 
accept the oath of the Glueen's Majesty, do from henceforth abroad 
wear none of the said apparel of the form and fashion aforesaid, but 
to go as mere laymen, till they be reconciled to obedience ; and who 
shall obstinately refuse to do the same, that they be presented by the 
ordinary to the commissioners in causes ecclesiastical, and by them 
be reformed accordingly."* 

Now, I respectfully ask those who know the honest and enlight- 
ened character of Milton, that had he been resolved "to retch liis 
conscience, by taking an oath withal," (which there can be no doubt 
Dr. Samuel Johnson, the moralist, would have recommended, as re- 
quired from every obedient subject to the king,) is it likely that, for 
the sake of obtaining a living of twenty pounds per year, (and it was 
not likely that such a man as Milton could have expected more un- 
der the archiepiscopal government of Laud,) that he would have con- 
sented to go " without his hat," and to " wear a short gown," that is, 
if the bishop of the diocese deemed he was not able, with twenty 
pounds a year, to buy a long one. I am fully persuaded that other 
* Sparrow's Articles, &c. p. 126 127. 

24* 



^''^ ANIMADVERSIONS ON 

and better reasons may be assigned, why Milton refused to "sub- 
cribe slave," than because "the thoughts of obediencOj" properly 
understood, "whether canonical or civU raised his indignation." It 
was not possible the noble mind of Milton could have submitted to 
be bound by such ignoble fetters and chains. 

" Canonical obedience," Milton well knew, would demand impli- 
cit regard to a hundred and forty-one cannons, besides seventeen 
passed in 1640, upon pain of being presented to " commissioners in 
causes ecclesiastical, and by them to be reformed accordingly," or 
how could he have " subscribed slave" to this engagement ? I shall 
not openly intermeddle with any artificers, occupations, as covetously 
to seek a gain thereby, having an ecclesiastical living to the sum of 
tic enty-six pounds, ten nobles, or above by the year." 

I can conjecture, too, the possibility of the honest and upright 
Milton refusing to " retch his conscience" to take the " Oath of 
Simony /" I think it probable he might have balked too, when taking 
deacon's orders, to answer to the following question : — 

" The Bishop. Will you revei'ently obey your ordinary, and other 
chief ministers of the church, and them to whom the government and 
charge is committed over you, following with a glad mind and wili 
their godly admonitions?"* 

Now would not Milton have hesitated, before he had " retched his 
conscience," and have " subscribed slave, and took an oath withal," 
to say, " I will endeavour myself, the Lord being my helper ?" — or 
might it not have entered his mind, " Judas got thirty pieces of sihtr 
for selling his master, but I am advised to sell my conscience, when it 
is possible I may only get in exchange for it twenty nobles a year 1" 
Nothing can be more evident to my mind, than that Dr. Johnson, 
with all his blunt and unmannerly Toryism towards Whigs, had not 
the ability to comprehend the essential qualities of an honourable, 
conscientious mind, hke that of Milton. 

Dr. Johnson, who doubtless hated Milton for taking part with the 
Parliament against the king, and had therefore hastened home from 
the continent to take part in the national struggle for freedom, says : 
" Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to loolc, witli 8ome degree of merri- 
ment, on great promises and small performance ; on the man who hastens home 
because his contrymen were contending for their liberty, and when he reaches the 
scene of action, vapours away his patriotism in a private boarding-school. This is 
the period of his life from which all his biographers seem inclined to shrink. They 
are unwilling that Milton should be degraded to a schoolmaster ; but since it can- 
not be denied that he taught boys, one finds out that he taught for nothing, and ano- 
ther that his motive was only zeal for the propogation of learning and virtue ; and 
all tell what they do not know to be true, only to excuse an act that no wise man 
* Ibid p. 147. 



DR. JOHNSON'S LIFE OF MILTON. 275 

will consider it as in itself disgraceful. His father was alive; liis allowance was 
not ample ; and he supplied his deficiences by an honest and useful employment." 
-P. 96. 

Notwithstanding the closing sentence of this paragraph is an affect- 
ed vindication of Milton from the mean slanders of his opponents ; 
yet what shall we say to the malignant inuendoes of Dr. Johnson as 
to " great promises and little performance ?" Dr. Johnson is " will- 
ingly ignorant" of the means by which Milton promoted the cause 
of civil and religious liberty. He himself thus describes his conduct : 
"Thinking a way might be opened to true hberty, I heartily engaged 
in the dispute." it to " apour away his patriotism," when he 

employed his pen, immediately on his return, to write his two books 
" On Reformaiion," against the Established Church ? — His Reply to 
Usher ?•— Of Prelatical Episcopacy, &c. ? — the Reason of Church 
Government, and other works, exposing the tyranny and corruption 
in Church and State ? If Dr. J. doubts whether Milton rendered 
any assistance to the "good cause," as it was called, let him account 
for it so satisfactorily, as by the admission that these writings contri- 
buted, more than the sword or bayonet, to all those astonishing re- 
sults in eight years to pull down the Star Chamber and High Com- 
mission Courts, to procure the abolition of the order of prelates, and 
the suppression of the Book of Common Prayer, and the downfall of 
tyranny ! So far from shrinking from this period of his life, I avow 
my conviction, that it was on many accounts the most splendid part 
of it ; because he wrote not only without the support or countenance 
of government, but in constant jeopardy of being the prey of Laud 
and his cringing sycophants. Most certainly. Dr. Johnson, Mil- 
ton's " patriotism" was not " vapoured away." Had it been less 
successful, I suspect that you would have been less malignant 
against him. 

Dr. Johnson says, speaking of a pamphlet which Milton pubUsh- 
ed in 1651, entitled "Considerations to remove hirelings out of the 
Church :" 

" The style of this piece is rough, and such, perhaps, was that of his antago- 
nist. This roughness he justifies, by great examples, in a long digression 
Sometimes he tries to be humourous ! ' Lest I should take him for some chap- 
lain in hand, some squire of the body to his prelate, one who starves not at the 
altar only, but at the court cupboard, he will bestow on us a pretty model of 
himself;' and sets me out half a dozen ptisical mottues, wherever he had them, 
hopping short in the measuie of convulsion fits ; in which labour Ihe agony of 
his wit having escaped narrowly, instead of well-sized periods, he greets ua 
with a quantity of thumb-ring poesies.' And thus ends this section, or rather 
dissection, of himself. Such," says Dr. J. " is the controversial merriment of 



276 ANIMADVERSIONS ON 

Milton : his gloomy seriousness is yet more offensive. Such is his malignity, 
that hdl grows darker at his frown /" — P. 102. 

If any reader of Milton's works will produce any sentence equal 
in " maJignity" to this of the liberal^ and cheerful, and witty Dr. J., he 
will accomplish that which this dark, and gloomy, and serious moral- 
ist, has not dared to attempt. Lord Chatham said in reply to Dr. 
Drummond, in 1773, who had exhibited accusations against the dis- 
senting ministers of that period : " He who brings charges against 
others without proof, defames:^ I charge Dr. J. with having, in this 
passage, committed the crime of wilful and deliberate defamation ! 

Dr. Johnson has another hit at Milton : speaking of liim after 
1644, 

" From this time, it is observed, that he became an enemy to the Presbyterians, 
whom he had favoured before. He that changes his party by his humour, is 
not more virtuous than he that changes it by his interest; he loves himself 
rather than truth."— P. 104. 

But, unfortunately for Dr. Johnson's sage' remarks, as every one 
knows, who knows any thing of Milton's life, he did not favour the 
Puritan side because they were Presbyterians, but because they took 
the side which himself had taken against Prelacy. Others with whom 
Milton was at first associated, changed their avowed principles as 
to the rights of conscience, and therefore he became their enemy. It 
would have required more than the Herculean powers attributed to 
Dr. Johnson by his admirers, but which, in my opinion, have been 
strangely overrated, to have produced the slightest shadow of proof of 
those assertions. Milton, as regarded his opinions on civil and reli- 
gious liberty, never changed his party, either from humour or self-love. 

In Milton's exposure of the work called Icon BasiliJce, he mention- 
ed a prayer taken from Sydney's Arcadia; and Dr. J., to throw the 
blame of hypocrisy from Charles, who was " all that was venerable 
and great," says : 

" But as faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it may find him, Mil- 
ton is suspected of having interpolated the book !" — P, 107. 

There have not been many instances of such a charge, without the 
shadow of evidence, and that too against one of the most honest men 
who ever employed his pen. No, Dr. J., Milton was incapable of 
such palpable meanness and lies ; he would not have been so degra- 
ded as to have even suspected another of such unmitigated folly and 
meanness ! 

But he has a still more grave charge against Milton, even that of 
venality ; as if" a bribe'"' could have blinded his eyes, even were there 
proof of its having been given, which there is not, Dr. J. says : — 



DR. Johnson's life of milton. 277 

*' Cromwell had now dismissed the Parliament by the authority of which he 
had destroyed monarchy, and commenced monarch himself, under the title of 
Protector, but with kingly and more than kingly power. That his authority 
was lawful never was pretended ; he himself founded his right only upon ne- 
cessity ; but Milton having now tasted the honey of public employment, would 
not return to hunger and philosophy, but continuing to exercise his office under 
a manifest usurpation, betrayed to his power that liberty which he had defended. 
Nothing can be more just, than that rebellion should end in slavery ; that he 
who had justified the murder of his king, for some acts whieh seemed to him 
unlawful, should now sell his servtces and his flatteries to a tyrant, of whom it 
was evident he could do nothing lawful." — P. 111. 

Against these virulent charges let Milton himself be heard, from 
the work which Dr. J. calls " flatteries to a tyrant." 

" A Letter written to a gentleman in the country, touching the Dis- 
solution of the late Parliament, and the Reason thereof.* 

"Sir, 

" Yours of the 27th past came safe, and with it your ad- 
miration of this great change which hath happened in the dissolution of 
the late Parliament, which I not at all wonder at ; for as this Island 
hath afforded the greatest Revolutions that I think any memory can 
afford us, of any time or place, so I believe this to be the greatest of 
them : and so much the greater, as that it was done, in a manner, in 
an instant, without contestation, without effusiort of blood, and for any 
thing I can perceive, without the least resentment of those whom it 
generally concerns. But when I shall put you in remembrance of 
what I have often enforced to you, (or to say better, discoursed, for 
the other is needless,) that the ways o^ Providence are inscrutable, and 
such as though, unexpected and temararius, yet are carried on by such 
a strange and supreme kind of design, it will be easy for an humble 
and an acquiring mind to see, that by several invisible degress, they 
bring forth their last and proposed intendments, yea, with those in- 
struments which seem and intend to do the contrary. 

" What man could have supposed, after the dissolution of the Par- 
liament preceding the last, to have had another so soon ? And for 
this last, who could have imagined that by Act it should have con- 
tinued, much more gloriously have undertaken the defence of an in- 
jured people by open arms against an oppressor, and that these under- 
takings, with admirable variety of success, should have been crowned 
with the extirpation of tyranny, and the decollation of the person of a 

* London : printed by F. Leach, for Richard Baddeley, at his shop witliin the 
Middle Temple Gate, 1653. 



27S ANIMADVERSIONS ON 

tyrant ; that this great Omniscience should so bless the endeavors of 
a Commonwealth, novi^ as I may say, in its very swaddling- clouts, as by 
them absolutely to reduce those dominions in three years, which a 
series ofproiid and lusty monarchs could not in six centurys do? Be- 
sides thdit navall opposition so fortunately and gloriously made against 
the greatest maritime enemy in Europe, or to speak with due ac- 
knowledgment, in the earth. Yet are these men, with all their vigor- 
ous and happy actions, suddenly dispersed like down blown off a 
thistle, and their power devolved into such hands, which as God hath 
made instrumentall in these strange emanations of his Divine Will, 
so we may humbly conceive, he intends to make further use of to the 
finishing of that great work, which by such visible signs he had mad 
appeare he hath in hand for the glory of his name, the felicity of these 
nations, and I believe for the blessed alteration of all Europe. 

" I am neither Stoick to believe that all things are limited by such 
a strong chain of fate, as that there is nothing left to man but mechani- 
cally to act ; nor yet can I resign myself to an absolute beUef of that 
saying of Plato, thai * To pray or fear is needless, it being out of our 
power to prevail by either ; but I shall modestly affirm it, that as I ever 
used to send up my prayers for the best things I could, upon the 
emergencies of the severe 11 times, so upon the breaking out and dis- 
covering of every hidden councill of above by some illustrious acci- 
dent, I have thrown my face upon the ground and submitted to it, 
never examining the means by which it was brought to pass, but the end 
to which it was brought ; for I cannot deny unto you, that I have that 
reverence and resignation to my great Lord and Maker, that as I be- 
lieve every dispensation affords to me in particular (be it bitter or be 
it sweet) a means of that grand consummation of felicity, which I am 
hereafter to endeavor and expect ; so even in politick bodies, wherein 
so many dear to Him are concerned, he suffers not any turn or revo- 
lution, but, his Omnisciency directs it, to the bettering or more happy- 
fying of that people. 

" And truly, in my apprehension, this is done at this season, and 
though you seem to stare at it, being unwilling to acknowledge 
that his hand is wise and powerful ; yet methinks it were an argu- 
ment worthy of an atheist, to say that irregular actions proceed from 
a carelessness above, than for a Christian to imagine that his designa- 
tions in altering the affairs of any state, should not tend to the better- 
ing of that state, and that that power into which he puts it, is not, in 
my mind, more fit and proper to manage it than that from which he 
took it ; forif ay?i/ fall not to the earth without his consent, I beseech 



DR. Johnson's life of milton. 279 

you, what shall we consider of his care ia the disposition of millions 
of men, things of his own image, without a high disbelief and contempt 
of his providence. 

" Though I am not ignorant what some people ignorantly, or per- 
adventure, splenetically and maliciously say, that He may suffer such 
things f^or the punishment of a. people, and for their reduction : yet when I 
seriously consider it, that as nothing but good can flow from that pure 
and simple fountain of goodness, so are his ways of providence, so far 
as purblind we can see. He chastises private men differently from 
public bodies ; some that he dearly loves, he afflicts, purges and refines^ 
gives them heaviness for a day, that they may hereafter have an ever- 
lasting weight of glory. States he sometimes afflicts for their own 
sins, sometimes for those of their governors, but still out of his mercy 
considers those who are dear unto him, and searches out if there be 
ten good in Sodoin, which if there be, he carries them out of their cap- 
tivity into the land of promise. 

" Out of these considerations, I, for my part, humbly submit to this 
mysterious and sudden action ; and because I perceive you not so 
well satisfied with it, am content with what present reasons I can, and 
out of my little intelligence, and small understandings of things, to 
give you an account. And therefore we are to consider, 

First, The means of government by the last Parliament ; then the 
right of obedience to superior powers ; and lastly, the effects, or 
events, that may come upon the late change." 

He intimates that the Presbyterians were the most offended. 

"Besides," says he, "the Presbyterian party, which is merely a 
Jesuit in a Genevah cloak, but somewhat more unsupportable.* ' 

After having shown the illegal practices of some members of the 
Long Parliament, and the impropriety that their existence should be 
perpetual, he says : 

" And therefore, since we are in a tempest, let us come to this rock, 
(to speak at the harshest,) rather than perish. For you cannot 
conceive but the worst government in the world is infinitely better 
than none at all, or to speak a little closclyer, an ill government well 
managed, people still judging of their safety, ov liberty, or civUl advan- 
tages, the effects not only of their government, but rulers. 

" I know your objection beforehand, that the action of the Lord 
Generall in the Dissolution was somewhat rough and barbarous, and 
I shall not trouble you with a long answer. That, as to his person, 
as he hath in the field declared himself one of the noblest assertors of 
our liberty, and as great an enlarger of our territories as ever was, so 



280 ANIMADVERSIONS ON 

as to any particular designs of his own in point o( government, it must 
be a something greater than human, that can discover how he either 
intended to invade us, or to make us a prey to any ambition of his. 
And therefore, if, upon this grand Revolxiiion, he might appear to his 
enemies passionate, yet considering the extremities that great minds 
fall into, and the great trust committed to him, it will appear to be 
nothing but the discharge of that duty that lay upon him. To have 
done such a thing as a single generall, wants neither example nor 
president, (but I would not injure an argument, by the by, which I 
could make good in a whole treatise.) For you may remember that 
of Ccesar to Metellus the Tribune : * Young man, (says he,) Hwas 
easier for me to say this than to do it;^ a speech, says Sir Francis Bacon, 
both the proudest and the mildest that ever came out of the mouth of 
man. For at that time he was breaking open the sacred treasury, 
which by the laws was not to be broken open. But it is otherwise 
here: this was not a rash and precipitate act of his, [Cromwell,] but 
a trust and result of those under him. 'Twas fit he that was most 
eminent should appear, and he as civilly, without noise and disturb- 
ance, did it. And therefore acting by their voles, and by their consents, 
it was their action as well as his ; and it is no more his action, than it 
is the action of the head moved by the tendons and muscles, which are 
parts of the body, and without which the head itself could not possibly 
at all move. 

" So that it here comes to a question. Whether, it be better for us 
to be in slavery under the name of liberty, or in liberty under the effects 
of slavery ? I have told my thoughts before, in what condition I 
thought our liberty was, and I repeat it once again, that I think this 
present is the better expedient. 

" I am no member of their councills, and by a late infirmity, lesse 
able to attend them ;* yet, if I can believe any thing, or understand 
men, when they make the clearest professions, they intend all noble 
things, both as to the glory of our good God, the making happy this 
poor nation, setthng the hberties of it, and reducing of us into one 
mind, and one way. But these are not only wishes of mine, but hopes 
and certain expectancies, and I believe they will convince these men 
to be liars that speak against them. But now I think I have put you 
to all the trials of your patience, which if my infirmity had not been, 
which confined me to my chamber, I could not have done ; but I rely 
so much on your candor, and I believe you think so well of my vera- 

* It will be seen from this, that he had just now lost his eye sight. 



DR. Johnson's life op milton. 281 

city, as I want not the impudence to affirm myself, (however you 
take it.) 

"Your affectionate Servant, 

« N. L. L, 
« London, May 3, 1653." 

Now let the candid reader say whether this is the language of flat- 
tery? whether there is any thing in it which contradicts any of his 
sentiments on former or later occasions ? whether there is any proof 
of his having sold his services to a tyrant, because he " tasted of the 
honey of pubUc employment, and would nt)t return to hunger and 
philosophy?" Why, though Milton's office as Latin Secretary tc 
the Council of State was most honourable, he did not receive more 
than two hundred a year it is said j not greatly superior to Dr. John- 
son's pension, for which he rendered no services to the commonwealth. 
Whatever difficiUties Milton might have felt in reconciling this bold 
step of Cromwell and his Council of Officers, with the rights which 
the Long ParUament had received by the consent of the late king not 
to be dissolved but by their own consent, it is evident he considered it 
a choice of difficulties, whether tyranny should be exercised under thf' 
title of Parliament or of Protector : he thought, whether justly or not 
that the people would have more liberty, and less slavery, under the 
latter than the former ; and that even the government of the army 
was to be preferred to an inefficient power, which could protect the 
interests of the whole community. 

Speaking of Milton's Latin Defence of the People of England, 
published in 1652, Dr. Johnson says : 

" In his Second Defence, he shows that his eloquence is not merely satirical : tlie 
rudeness of his invective is equalled by the grossness of his flattery. Csesar, when 
he assumed the perpetual dictatorship, had not more servile and elegant flattery. 
A translation may show its servility, but its elegance is less attainable. Havint 
exposed the unskilfulness or selfishness of the formf;r government, 'We are left,' 
says Milton, 'to ourselves^ the whole national interest fell into your hands, and 
subsists only in your abilities. To your virtue, overpowering and resistless, every 
man gives way, except some, who, without equal qualifications, aspire to equal 
honours, who envy the distinctions of merit greater than their own, and who have 
yet to learn, that in the coalition of human society, nothing is more pleasing to God. 
or more agreeable to reason,, than that the highest mind should have the sovereign 
power. Such, Sir, are you by general confession ; such are the things achieved by 
you, the greatest and most glorious of our countrymen, the director of our public 
councils, the leader of unconquered armies, the father of your country; for by that 
title does every good man hail you with sincere and voluntary praise."— p. 113. 

Now, I ask whether there is any appearance of servility or flattevh 
in this euloffium of Cromwell ? Is it not the truth? Could he have 
^ 25 



.^.tX 



2055 ANIMADVERSIONS ON 

ventured to say so much of the Protector's qualities of Hiind, had it 
not been conceded by " every good man" in the country ? Dr. J., in 
his dictionary, defines servility to be " meanness, dependence, base- 
ness ;" and flatto-y to be "false praise, artful obsequiousness:" I ap- 
peal to every candid mind, whether his malignant heart has enabled 
him to convict Milton of either of those mean vices ? The noble- 
minded Paul said, " They laid many false and grievous things to my 
charge, which they could not prove !" What is there either mean, or 
base, or indicating dependence ? What of false praise or artful obse- 
quiousness ? No, no. Dr. Johnson : you might have found evidence 
had you been sufficiently impartial to have made the honest scrutiny, 
o{ servility and flattery much nearer home ! 

But Dr. Johnson has not yet expended all his venom. He says : 
•= As secretary to the Protector, he is supposed to hare written the Declarations 
of the Reasons of a War with Spain. His agency was considered of great impor- 
tance ; for, when a treaty with Sweden was artfully suspended, the delay was pub- 
licly imputed to Mr. Milton's indisposition : and the Swedish agent was provoked 
to express his wonder, that only one man in England could write Latin, and that 
man blind! "—P. 114. 

And vi^ill the reader believe it, that this M'itty sentence of puerile do- 
tardism all rests upon the following unimportant fact, stated in White- 
lock '^s Memorials : 

" May, 1656. The Swedish ambassador again complained of the 
delays in business, and that when he had desired to have the articles of 
his treaty put into Latin, according to the custom in treaties, that it 
was fourteen days they made him stay for the translation, and sent it 
to one Mr. Milton, a blind man, to put them into Latin, who he said 
must use an amanuensis to read it to him, and that amanuensis might 
publish the matter of the articles as he pleased ; and that it seemed 
strange to him, there should be none but a blind man capable of 
putting a few Articles into Latin. The employment of Mr. Milton 
was excused to him, because several other servants of the Council fit 
for that employment were then absent." 

The malevolent feelings cherished towards Milton appear in the 
following paragraph : it is founded upon a few lines at the com- 
mencement of the Seventh Book of Paradise Lost. 
" Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole, 
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchang'd 
To hoarse or mute, though/alien on evil days, 
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues, 
In darkness and withdangers compass^dround^ 
And solitude : yet not alone, while thou 
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn 
Purples the east." 



DR. JOHNSON'S LIFE OF MILTON. 283 

One might have expected that the situation of Milton, reduced to 
blindness, and left in widowhood, would have called forth, even from 
Dr. Johnson, the expression of sympathy, at least have prevented his 
heaping upon him the contumelious charges of " ingratitude," and 
■*' injustice," the " asperity of reproach, and the brutality of insolence," 

" Milton being now cleared," says Dr. J., "from all effects of his disloyalty, had 
nothing required from him but the common duty of living in quiet, to be rewarded 
with the common right of protection ; but this, which, when he sculked from th g 
approach of the king, was perhaps more than he hoped, seems not to have satisfied 
Mm: for no sooner is he safe than he finds himself in danger, _/aZZen on evil 
tongues, and with darkness and with danger compassed roicnd. This dark- 
ness, had his eyes been better employed, had undoubtedly deserved compassion; 
but to add the mention of danger was ungrateful and unjust He was fallen Indeed 
on evil days : the time was come when regicides could no longer boast their wick- 
edness. But of evil tongues for Milton to complain, required impudence at least 
equal to his other poweis; Milton, whose warmest advocates must allow, that he 
never spared any severity of reproachj or brutality of rudeness." — P. 135. 

My opinion is, that there is nothing in any of Milton's works 
•which will justify any of the above charges, even were they stripped 
of the foul-mouthed epithets by which they are ornamented and 
strengthened ; nothing equal in " impudence," " asperity," or " bru- 
tality," to this passage from the modest, calm, and classical pen of 
Dr. Johnson. The charge against Milton, of "scuZfcmg: from the 
approach of the king," might have been brought, with equal propriety, 
against the Apostle Paul, when, for the purpose of preserving himself 
from being apprehended by Aretus the king, he consented to be let 
down over the wall of the city in a basket] Was this prudent pre- 
caution to secure his liberty, and probably his life, to have been a 
sculker, one who hid himself for shame or mischief? 

" Richardson says, in his Notes on the above Unes, p. 291, " This 
is explained by a secret piece of history, for which we have good au- 
thority. Paradise Lost was written after the Restoration, when Mil- 
ton apprehended himself to be in danger of his life. First from pub- 
lick vengeance, (having been deeply engaged against the royal party) 
and when safe by a pardon, from private malice and resentment. He 
was always in fear ; much alone, and slept ill ; when restless, he 
would ring for the person who wrote for him, (which was his daugh- 
ter commonly,) to write what he had composed, which sometimes 
flowed with great ease." 

The following paragraph is not quoted for its malignity, but its in- 
accuracy. Speaking of " Paradise Regained," Dr. Johnson says : 

"lie could not, as Elioood relates, endure to hear Paradise Lost preferred to 
Paradise Regained.^' — P. 141, 



t84 ANIMADVERSIONS ON 

JVoiy, Elwood relates nothing like it I Yet, upon this mitake, ths- 
Dr. makes these remarks : 

" Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgment of his own works. On tiiat winch 
has cost him much labour he sets a high value, because he is unwilling to think he 
has laboured in vain. What ie produced with toilsome efforts is considered with 
delight, as a proof of vigorous facuUies and fertile invention; and the last work, 
whatever it be, has necessarily most of the grace of novelty. Milton, however it 
happened, had this prejudice, and had it to himself."— P. 141. 

Dr. Johnson, speaking of his last work, says : 

" His polemical disposition again revived. He had now been safe so long 
that he forgot his fears, and published ' A Treatise of true Religion, Heresy, 
Schism, Toleration, and the best Means to prevent the growth of Popery.' But 
^his little work is modesty written, with respectful mention of the Church of 
England, and an appeal to the Thirty-nine Articles. His principle of toleration 
is, agreement in the sufficiency of the Scriptures ; and he extends it to all who, 
whatever their opinions are, profess to derive It from the sacred books. The 
Papists appeal to other testimonies, and are therefore, in his opinion, not to be 
permitted the liberty of either publick or private worship ; for though they plead 
conscience, ' ff^e have no warrant,^ he says, ' to regard conscience, which is not 
grounded in Scripture.'' Those who are not convinced by his reasons, may be 
perhaps delighted with his wit. ' The term Roman Catholick is,' he says, ' one 
of the Pope's Bulls : it is particular, universal, or catholick schismatick.' He 
has, however, something better. As the best preservative against Poperj', he 
recommends the diligent perusal of the Scriptures, a duty from which he warns, 
'he busy part of mankind not to think themselves excused." — p. 142. 

One would almost think that the " respectful mention" made by 
Milton of the Church of England, and " the appeal to the Thirty- 
nine Articles," were such an atonement for all his former misdeeds in 
having exposed the errors of its constitution, and the pride of its bish- 
ops, that even the implacability of Johnson's mind had been placated, 
and liis fierce wrath removed. What he has said upon those topics 
ts as follows: " With good and pious reasons, therefore, all Protestant 
churches, with one'consent, and particidarly the Church of England, in 
her Thirty-nine Articles, and elsewhere, maintain these two points, as 
the main principles of true rehgion, that the rule of true religion is the 
word of God only, and that their faith ought not to be an implicit 
faith ; that is to beheve though as the church beheves, against or 
without express authority from Scripture." In confirmation of this 
statement, he refers to the Sixth Article, entitled, "Of the sufficiency 
of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation." The Nineteenth, entitled "Of 
the Church ;" and the Twentieth, in so far, of course, as it relates to 
his subject, viz. " It is not lawful for the church to ordain any thing 
contrary to God's word written, neither may it so expound one place 



DR. JOHNSON'S LIFE OF MILTON. 285 

of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another," &c. That Milton 
■should have appealed in his old age, and respectfully too, to the Arti- 
cles of the Church of England, simply on the ground of her Protes- 
tantism, is not at all at variance with hiw" attacks upon her prelates, for 
their persecuting other Christians, when he wrote his immortal expo- 
sures of those things in which, notwithstanding her professed Refor- 
mation, she resembled the Church of Rome. But Dr. Johnson either 
could not, or would not see, the difference of his expressing his ap- 
probation of those principles which are purely Protestant, when writing 
against Papists ; and the reasons which he assigned why he could 
not ex animo subscribe to other things in the same articles which he 
considered to be as unscriptural as similar ones in the Church of 
Rome : there is a -very wide difference between writing freely of her 
excellencies, and " subscribing slave," with an oath into the bargain, 
to her acknowledged defects. 

Dr. Johnson will not suffer his ashes to rest undisturbed : — 

" His widow, who after his death retired to Namptvvich in Cheshire, and died 
about 1729, is said to have reported that he lost two thousand pounds by en- 
trusting it to a scriviner ; and that in the general depredation upon the churchy 
he had grasped an estate of about sixty pounds a year, belonging to Westmin- 
ster Abbey, which, like other shares of the plunder of the rebellion, he loas after- 
wards obliged to return.''^ — P. 145. 

And so. Dr. Johnson, because his widow " is said to have reported''' 
this strange story, yuu have thought fit to give it the sanction of your 
authority that " he took a share in the plunder of rebellion !" Would 
any man, who had a grain of modesty, have made such a spiteful 
charge, without better evidence than that of his widow having reported, 
" it is said, he had grasped an estate of about sixty pounds a year, be- 
longing to Westminster Abbey !" 

Dr. Johnson, in the following remarks, has not perhaps mixed up 
so large a portion of his gall, though he has fallen into the common 
errors of all his biographers ; who have concluded, that because he 
was not seen in the street going to church with a prayer-book under 
his arm, and because he did not ring a bell to call his household to 
family prayer, have concluded that he never worshipped God either 
publicly or privately ] ! 

" His theological opinions," says Dr. J. " are said to have been first Calvin- 
istical ; and afterwards, perhaps, when he began to hate the Presbyterians, to 
have tended towards Arminianism. In the mixt questions of theology and go- 
vernment, he never thinks he can recede far enough from popery or prelacy ; 
but whatBandius says of Erasmus seems applicable to him, magis habuit quod 
fugeret, quam quod sequeretur. He had determined rather what to condemn, 

25* 



286 ANIMADVERSIONS ON 

than what to approve. lie had not associated himself with any denomination 
of Protestants ; we know rather what he was not, than what he was. He was 
not of the Church of Rome ; he was not of the Church of England."— p. 147. 

But there were a vast many Protestant congregational churches, 
with which he might have associated himself, and I doubt not but he 
did, at least as a devout worshipper, though he has not left any record 
of his having done so. The fact is, that as to the peculiar principles 
of the Baptists, he was associated with them : he was reckoned among 
them in 1644, at which time there were of Calvinists at least seven 
separate congregations. I know not to which of these he belonged ; 
but I think it fair to conclude, he was known to have united himself 
to one of them, or how could Dr. Featly have attributed his Doctrine 
and Discipline of Divorce to the Baptists ? As to his principles of 
church government, they were congregational ; and these are held 
equally by Baptists and Independents. In 1661, we find Ephraim 
Pagit reckoning him as an Independent, which he w ould not have 
done, had he not been known to belong to those whom Pagit consid- 
ered sectaries. I suppose he was not a member of any congregational 
church after the early period of his life ; as 1 conjecture he might 
have been excluded from the Baptist church, for having pubhshed, in 
his work on * The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,' principles 
which would procure the expulsion of even a Milton now, and which 
nothing but a public retractation of them would be sufficient to pro- 
cure liis being restored. 

Dr. Johnson, having laid the foundation of his remarks on the sand 
proceeds to erect a castle in the air. 

" To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are dis- 
tant, and which is animated only by Faith and Hope, will glide by degrees out 
of the mind, unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, 
by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example."— p. 147. 

This well applies to the form of " godliness," the only religion of 
which it appears Dr. J. knew any thing ; but not to " the power of 
godliness," respecting his knowledge of which, Milton, by his writ- 
ings, and by his holy Ufe, has afforded abundant evidence. Dr. J, 
proceeds : 

" Milton, who appears to have had full conviction of the truth of Christian- 
ity, and to have regarded the Holy Scriptures with the profoundest veneration, 
to have been untainted by any heretical opinions, and to have lived in a con- 
firmed belief of the immediate and occasional agency of Providence, yet grew 
old without any visible worship- In the distribution of his hours, there was no 
hour of prayer, either solitary or with his household : omitting publick prayer, he 
omitted aW."— p- 147. 



DR, JOHNSON'S LIFE OF MILTON. 287 

Were there ever such gratuitous assertions and charges of atheism 
preferred upon such groundless suppositions ? I admit that he 
" omitted the pubhck prayers" of the EstabUshed Church : he did not 
say after the priest, either in the petitions of the Liturgy, or the sub- 
lime chantings of the cathedral service ; but is this a sufficient ground 
for the conclusion, that therefore "he omitted all prayer to God ?" I 
doubt not but Dr. Johnson must have been acquainted with literary 
men among the Protestant dissenters, whom even he would not have 
placed with atheists. And as to his not having " any hour for solitary 
prayer," how was that to be ascertained ? He might, if I may be 
forgiven the solecism, have enjoyed solitary prayer in the midst of his 
secular employments, or his intercourse with his friends and family. 
Would Dr. J. have excluded all those who belong to the Society of 
Friends from the character of Christian, because they have in their 
families " no hour of prayer, either solitary or with their household ?" 
Would he have said of William Penn, or Richard Reynolds, not to 
mention many besides, who have blessed the world with their patriot- 
ism and philanthropy, that " omitting publick prayers, they omitted 
all." 

But let us hear this inconsistent dogmatizer declaim further on a 
subject of which he was not capable of forming a correct idea : 

" Of this omission, the reason has been sought upon a supposition which 
ought never to be made, that men live with their own approbation, and justify 
their conduct to themselves. Prayer certainly was not thought superfluous by 
him, who represents our first parents as praying acceptably in the state of inno- 
cence, and efficaciously after the fall. That he lived without prayer can hardly 
be affirmed : his studies and meditations were an habitual prayer. The neglect 
of it in his family was probably a fault for which he condemned himself, and 
which he intended to correct, but that death, as too often happens, intercepted 
his reformation !"— p. 148. 

If this language be applied to the pious and evangelical Milton, 
it is arrant nonsense : if it be considered the ebullitions of the accusing 
conscience of the formal and pharisaical Johnson, it will probably 
appear correct. 

Let the reader judge, from the two following quotations from Par- 
adise Lost, whether Miltqn undervalued spiritual, evangelical prayer ; 

" Thus at their shady lodge arrived, both stood, 
Both turn'd, and under open sky adored 
That God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven, 
Which they beheld, the moon's resplendant fi;lohe, 
And starry sky. Thou also mad'st the night, 
Maker Omnipotent 



ANIMADVERSIONS ON 



This said, unanimous, and other rites 
Observing none, but adoration pure, 
Which God hkes best, into their inmost bower 
Handed they went." 

" So spake our father penitent, nor Eve 
Felt less remorse : they forthwith to the place 
Repairing where he judged them, prostrate fell 
Before him reverent, and both confess'd 
Humbly their faults, and pardon begg'd, with tears 
Watering the ground, and with their sighs the air 
Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign 
Of sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek. 
* * ♦ * 

Thus they in loveliest plight repentant stood 
Praying, for from the mercy-seat above 
Prevenient grace descending had removed 
The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh 
Regenerate grow instead, that sighs now breathed 
Unutterable, which the Spirit of prayer 
Inspired, and wing'd for heaven with speedier flight 
Than loudest oratory." 
{End of the Tenth, and beginning of the Eleventh Books.) 

Let us hear Dr. J. on another part of Milton's character : 

"His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly republican, fov 
which it is not known that he gave any better reason, than that a popular govern- 
ment was the most frugal ; for the trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordi- 
nary commonwealth. It is surely very shallow policy, that supposes money to be 
the chief good; and even this without considering that the support and expense of 
a court is, for the most part, only a particular kind of traffick,by which money is 
circulated without any national impoverishment."— P. 14.8. 

It is true that Milton has pleasantly assigned the reason quoted by 
Johnson ; but that he never gave a better is a most silly statement, 
and I appeal to his writings as my proof. And must it not have been 
" very shallow" casuistry, to have inferred from his notions of a repub- 
lican government being the most economical, that his notions were 
those of an acrimonious and surly republican ? No, Dr. J. ; he cer- 
tainly objected to monarchy and to an oligarchy , but he would not have 
objected to an aristocracy, as being, in some cases, to be preferred to a 
democracy. Nor was he " surly" or " acrimonious :" let him bo placed 
in contrast with the siniling and milk-of-hwnan kindness Dr. J., and 
then let the world judge which of them deserved the application of 



DR. JOHNSON'S LIFE OF MILTON. 289 

these offensive terms, the moderate republican, or the ultra supporter of 
jure divino monarchy ! 

But Dr. J. has not done with Milton yet : his abihty for abusing a 
republican was pre-eminent ; nor has he ceased till he has expended 
all the poisoned arrows of his quiver at the object of his malignity. 

" Milton's republicism was, I am afraid, founded in an envious liatred of great- 
ness, and a sullen desire of independence, in petulence impatient of control, and 
pride disdainful of superiority. He hated monarchs in the state, and prelates in the 
church ; for he hated ail whom he was required to obey. It is to be suspected, that 
his predominant desire was to destroy rather than establish, and that he felt not so 
much the love of liberty, as repugnance to authority." — P. 148. 

To repel these malignant assertions, unsupported by the least proof, 
would be "to answer a fool according to his folly," and I should ap- 
pear " a fool like unto him." I shall therefore adopt the language of 
the Psalmist, and say, " What shall be done unto thee, and what shall be 
given to thee, thou false tongue !" 

Again, says Dr. J. 

" It has been observed, that they who most loudly clamour for liberty, do not most 
liberally grant it. What we know of Milton's character in domestic relations is, 
that he was severe and arbitrary. His family consisted of women ; and there ap- 
pears something like a Turkish contempt of females, as subordinate and inferior be- 
ings. That his own daughters might not break the ranks, he suffered them to be 
depressed by a mean and penurious education. He thought women only made for 
obedience, and men only for rebellion."— P. 149. 

How far the publications of Milton, to prove he had the right to 
put away his wife, because she was not of an amiable, uniting temper, 
may support the above caricature, let the read*5r judge. I have given 
my opinion that he was erroneous in his principles, and unwise in his 
conduct on that subject. That he has treated females with a sort of 
" Turkish contempt, as subordinate and inferior beings," Dr. J., one 
is ready to think, must have been conscious that he was uttering a 
malicious falsehood : no one can produce the passages from his work 
which afford a shadow of evidence in support of the calumnious char- 
ges. Speaking of his death, Dr. Johnson admits, with great impar- 
tiality, " His funeral was very splendidly and numerously attended." 
How could this have been, sapient Sir, if Milton was the domestic 
monster, and the public, restless barbarian, which you have represent- 
ed him to be? An unbought funeral train of mourners is about as 
good a test of the real character of any person as can be supplied ! 
And Dr. J. knew, if he would have stated, that no one was more 
esteemed in life, or lamented at death, than Milton, by that class 
of society, whether in higher or more humble life, whose approbation 
is worth enjoying. One word more from Dr. J. " Upon his grave there 



290 ANIMADVERSIONS ON 

is supposed to have been no memorial ; but in our time a monument 
has been erected in Westminster Abbey — To the Authw of Paradise 
Lost — By Mr. Benson, who has, in the inscription, bestowed more 
words upon himself than upon Milton." — P. 143. 

" When the inscription for the monument of Philips, in which he was said to be 
soli Miltoni secundus, was exhibited to Dr, Sprat, then Dean of Westminster, he 
refused to admit it; the name of Milton was, in liis opinion, too detestable to be read 
on the wall of a building dedicated to devotion."— P. 143. 

And there is no doubt but what Dr. J» thought the sacred walls o 
Westminster Abbey would have been desecrated by the odious and 
execrable name of the author of Paradise Lost. He says : 

"Atterbury, who succeeded hira, being author of the inscription, permitted its 
reception. ' And such is the change of publick opinion,' said Dr. Gregory, from 
whom I heard this account, ' that I have seen erected in the church, a statue of that 
man whose name I once knew considered as a pollution of its walls !' "—P. 143. 

Was there ever any thing so unaccountable, that after prejudice had 
time to remove the film from the eye of the public, that it should have 
seen excellencies in the character of Milton which the purbUnd, 
bat's-eyes of Dr. Gregory and Dr. Johnson could never discover ; but 
" none are so blind as those who won't see !" 

I consider that Johnson's Life of Milton is a disgrace to the "Lives 
of the Poets." And that instead of having tarnished the lustre of 
Milton's character, he has erected a permanent monument to his ho- 
hour and reputation, as a pubUc spirited, noble minded Briton, the 
consistant and fearless defender of civil and religious liberty — unbribed 
and iinpensioned ! Johnson has by writing it deserved, if not a monu- 
ment, yet a flat stone to his own memory, on which may be inscribed, 
^* Sacred to the memory of a mean detractor of virtue which he would 
not appreciate, of principles he could not comprehend, and of piety 
which he did not imitate — the contracted Tory pensioner, dictionary 
compiler, high-church bigot, and semi-popish reviler, Dr. Samuel 
Johnson !" 



291 

ROYAL PROCLAMATION. 

No. II. 



" By the King :" [The Royal Arms prefixed.] 
" A Proclamation, for calling in and suppressing of two books by 
John Milton ; the one entitled, Johannis Mittoni Angli pro Populi 
Jinglicano Defensio^ contra Claudii Anonyani alias Sahnasii Defensiorum 
Regiam; and the other in answer to a book entitled, The Portraiture 
of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitude and Sufferings ; and also a third 
book entitled, The Obstructors of Justice, written by John Goodwin, 

" Charles R. 

" Whereas John Milton, late of Westminster, in county of 
Middlesex, hath published in print two several books, [repeating the 
titles as above,] in both which are contained sundry treasonable pas- 
sages against us and our government, and most impious endeavours 
to justifie the horrid and unmatchable murther of our late dear father 
of glorious memory. 

" And whereas John Goodivin, late of Coleman Street, London, 
Clerk, hath also published in print a book entitled, The Obstructors of 
Justice, written in defence of his said late majesty, and whereas the 
said John Milton and John Goodwin are both fled, or so obscure 
themselves, that no endeavours used for their apprehension can take 
effect, whereby they might be brought to legal trial, and deservedly 
receive condign punishment for their treasons and offences. 

" Now to the end that our good subjects may not be corrupted in 
their judgments, with such wicked and traitorous principles, as are 
dispersed and scattered throughout the forementioned books, we, upon 
the motion of the Commons in parliament now assembled do hereby 
straightly charge and command all and every person and persons 
whatsoever, who live in any city, borough, or town incorporate, within 
this our kingdom of England, and dominion of Wales, and town of 
Berwick upon Tweed, in whose hands any of these books are, or 
hereafter shall be, that they, upon pain of our high displeasure, and 
the consequence thereof, do forthwith, upon publication of this our 
command, or within ten days immediately following, deliver, or cause 
the same to be delivered, to the mayor, bailiff, or other chief offcer or 
magistrate," &c. [Then follow orders to seize upon such books, and 
to prevent their being reprinted or circulated.] 

" Given at our Court at Whitehall, the 13th day of August, in 
the twelfth year of our reign, 1660. 

" London, printed by John Bill and Christopher Barker, Printers to 
the King's Most Excellent Majesty, 1660." 



292 ROYAL PROCLAMATION. 

No. III. 



Extract from a ivork, entitled, " Some account of the Life and Writings 
of John Milton, by the Rev. John Henry Todd, JVI. *4. F. Jl. S. Chaplain 
in Ordinary to his Majesty. Derived principally from Documents 
in his Majesty'' s State Paper Office. J^ow first published, 1826. 

The following is copied from Section III. of the above 
work, p. 107. 
The book of Orders of Council of State, during the usurpation, 
found in his Majesty's State Paper Office, presents the poet addressed 
by a Committee, appointed for the purpose of inviting him into office 
about six weeks after the martyrdom of the king. 

" 1648—9. March 13. Ordered, That Mr. Whitelocke, Sir Henry 
Vane, Lord Lisle, Earl of Denbigh, Mr. Martyn, Mr. Lisle, or any 
two of them, be appointed a Committee to consider what alliances the 
crown hath formerly had with Forreigne States, and what those States 
are ; and how farr they should be continued, and upon what grounds ; 
and in what manner applications and addresses should be made for 
the said continuance. 

" That it be referred to the same Committee to speake with Mr. Mil- 
ton, to know if he will be employed as Secretary for the Forreigne 
Tongues, and to report to the Councill. 

" 1648-9. — March 15. Ordered, That Mr. John Milton be employ- 
ed as Secretary for Forreigne Tongues to this Councill, and that he have 
the same salarie, which Mr.Wickerly formerly had for the same service. 

" 1648-9.— March 22. Ordered, That the letters now read, to be 
sent to Hamburgh, in behalf of the company of Merchant Adventur- 
ers, be approved, and that they be translated into Latin by Mr. Milton. 

" 1649.— March 26. Ordered, That the letters now brought in by 
Mr. Milton, to the Senate of Hamburgh, be approved ; and that Mr. 
Isaac Lee, Deputy of the Company of Merchant Adventurers there, 
shall be appointed Agent for delivering them. 

1649.— March 26. Ordered, That Mr. Milton be appointed to 
make some observations upon a paper lately printed called " Old and 
JVcio Chains:'* 

" 1649.— March 28. Ordered, That Mr. Milton be appointed to 
make some observations of interest, which is new amongst the several 
designers against the peace of the Commonwealth, and that it be 

* John Lilburn was the author of this book, and was on account of it committed to 
prison on the suspicion of high treason, Jutlge Jenkins used to say of him in re- 
gard to his litigious disposition, that if the world was emptied of all but .Tohn Lil- 
burn, Lilburn would quarrel with John, and John would quarrel with Lilburn. 



EXTRACTS FROM COUNCIL BOOK. 293 

made ready to be printed, with the papers out of Ireland, which the 
House hath ordered to be printed. 

" 1649.— May 18. Ordered, That the French letters, given into the 
House by the Dutch Ambassadors, be translated by Mr. Milton j 
and the rest of the Letters now in the House, be sent for and transla- 
ted. 

" 1549,_May 30. Ordered,'That Mr. Milton take the papers forth- 
with to Mr. John Lee, and examine them to see what may be found 
in them. 

" 1649. — June 23. Ordered that Mr. Milton doe examine the pa- 
pers of Prag-mrtftcws,* and report what he finds in them to theCouncill. 

« 1649.--Novembor 12. Ordered, That Sir John Hippesly be 
spoken to, that Mr. John Milton may be accommodated with those 
lodgings that he hath at Whitehall. 

" 1649.— November 19. Ordered, That Mr. Milton shall have 
the lodgings that were in the hands of Sir John Hippesly, in White- 
hall, for his accommodation as being Secretary to the Councill for 
Forreigne Tongues. 

" 1649.— November 29. Ordered, That a letter be written to the 
Commissioners of the Customs, to desire them to give order, that a 
very strict search may be made of such ships as come from the Ne- 
therlands for certaine scandalous bookes ; which are there printed, 
against the government of this Commonwealth, entitled Defencio Re- 
gia, and which are designed to be sent over hither ; and to desire them 
that if any upon search shall be found, that they may be sent up to 
the Councill of State, without suffering any of them to be otherwise 
disposed of upon any pretence whatever. 

" That a warrant be directed to the Masters and Wardens of the 
Company of Stationers, to the purpose aforesaid. 

" That the like letter be directed to Mr. Thomas Bendish, an officer 
in the port of Yarmouth, to take care of searching for the aforesaid 
book, which is expected to come out of Holland. 

" 1649-50. — January 8. Ordered, That one hundred pounds be 
paid Mr. Thomas Waring, for his pains and charge in compihng a 
booke containing several examinations of the Bloody Massacre in 
Ireland. 

" That Mr. Milton doe confer with some printers or stationers 
concerning tlie speei._, printing of this book, and give an account of 
what he hath done therein to the Councill. 

* The Mercurius Pragmaticus, a newspaper in support of Charles the Second 
April 24, 1649. 

26 



294 EXTRACTS FROM COUNCIL BOOK. 

if 

. . '^'^hat Mr. Milton doe prepare something in answer to the boofc 
•>of Sahiiasius, and when he hath done itt, biing itt to the Councill. 

" 1651. — May 20. Ordered, That Mr. Durie doe proceed in trans- 
lating Mr. Milton's book, written in answer to the late King's 
booke ; and that it be left to Mr. Frost to give him such reward for 
his pains, as he shall think fitt. 

" 1650. — June 22. Ordered, That Mr. Milton doe goe to the 
Committee of the Armie, and desire them to send to this Councell the 
book of Examinations, taken about the risings in Kent and Essex. 

" 1650. — June 25. Ordered, That Mr. Milton doe peruse the 
Examinations taken by the Armi« concerning the insurrections in 
Essex ; and that he doe take heads of the same, to the end the Coun- 
cill may judge what is to be taken into consideration. 

" 1650.— June 26. Ordered, That the declaration of the Parliament 
against the Dutch, be translated into Latine by Mr. Milton, into 
Dutch by Mr. Haak,* and into French by Monsieur Augier. 

" 1650.— August 14. Ordered, That Mr. Thomas Goodwin, Mr. 
Bifield, Mr. Bond, Mr. Nye,'Mr. Durye, Mr. Frost, or Mr. Milton, 
or any three of them, of which Mr. Frost, or Mr. Milton to be one, 
be appointed to view and to inventorie all the words, writings, and 
papers whatsoever, belonging to the Assembly of the Synod, to the 
end they may not be embezzled, and may be forthcoming for the use 
of the Commonwealth. 

" 1650. — December 23. Ordered, That Mr. Milton doe print tlie 
Treatise which he hath written, in answer to a late book written by 
Salmasius against the proceedings of the Commonwealth."! 

It has been said, but erroneously there is no doubt, that Milton 
received from the Councill £1000 for writing this book. I have ex- 
pressed a doubt, in a former part of this work, as to the accuracy of 
this statement, and it is confirmed by the following entry: — 

" 1651. — June 18. Ordered, That thanks be given to Mr. Milton 
on behalf of the Commonwealth, for his good services done in writing 
an answer to the booke of Salmasius, written against the proceedings 
of the Commonwealth of England." ' But,' says Mr. Todd, ' all this 
is crossed over, and nearly three lines following obliterated, in which 
the accurate Mr. Lemon says a grant of money was made to Milton.' 
Admitting this to be the fact, is it not reasonable to conclude that 
Milton refused to accept the grant, because after the cancelled pas- 
sage, the regular entry thus follows : " The Councill, taking notice 
of the manie good services performed by Mr. John Milton, the 

* This learned man translated the first six books of Paradise Lost into High 
Dutch. 

t Milton's book was burnt at Paris and Toulouse- 



EXTRACTS FROM COUNCIL BOOK. 295 

Secretarie for Forreigne Languages, to this State and Common weklth, 
particularUe for his book in vindication of the Parliament and people of 
England, against the calumnies and invectives of Salmasins, have thought 
fitt to declare their resentment and good acceptance of the same ; and 
that the thanks of the Councill be returned to Mr. Milton, and their 
sense expressed in that behalf." 

To return to the regular entries : 

" 1650-51. — ^February 10. Ordered, That the way of meeting with 
the Pubhque Minister of Portugall, be by a Committee of the Coun- 
cill, consisting of such a number as the Councill shall think fitt in 
reference to the quality of such Minister. 

" That Mr. Milton, the Secretarie for Forreigne Languages, bee 
appointed to attend the Committee at their meetings ; and that Joseph 
Frost be employed for such writing as the Committee shall have oc- 
casion for in this business. 

"1650.— Feb. 18. Ordered, That Mr. Milton be Secretary for 
Forreigne Languages, for the time of the Councill. 

" 1650-51. — March 5. Ordered, that it be referred to the Commit- 
tee of Examinations, to vievve over Mr. Milton's booke,* and give 
order for re-printing it, if they thinke fitt. 

" 1652.— Nov. 15. Ordered, that it be referred to Mr. Thurloe, to 
consider of a fitt reward to be given to Mr. Durie, for his pains in 
translating into French the book written by Mr. Milton, in answer 
to that of the late king's, entitled ' His Meditations.' 

" 1653. — April 1. Ordered, that the Commissioners of the Customs 
doe permit certain books written by Mr. Milton, in answer to the 
booke called the late king's, being translated into French, to bee 
transported into France custom free." 

We now return to the period immediately subsequent to the publi- 
cation of Milton's leonoclastes. 

^' 1649-50.— Feb. 2. Ordered, that orders be sent to Mr. Baker, 
Mr. Challenor, Mr. Wickerlyn, Mr. WilHngham, or any others who 
have in their hands any public papers belonging to the Commonwealth, 
to deliver them to Mr. Milton, to be layd up in the paper-office for 
publique service ; and that Mr. Baker be appointed to order those 
papers, that they may be ready for use. 

"1649-50.— Feb. 18. Ordered, that Mr. Milton, Secretary for 
Forreigne Languages ; Sergeant Dunde, Sergeant-at-Arms ; Mr. 
Frost, the younger, assistant to Mr. Fro^t, the Secretary, and all the 
clerks formerly employed under Mr. Frost, as also the messengers, 
Send all other officers employed by the Councill last yeare, and not 

*The leonoclastes. Second Edition. 



296 EXTRACTS FROM COUNCIL BOOK. 

dismissed, shall be again entertained with the same employments, and 
shall receive the same salary which was appointed them the yeare past. 

" 1649-50.— Feb. 23. Memorandum, that Mr. John Milton, 
Secretary for the Forreigne Languages ; Mr. Edward Dendie, Ser- 
geant-at-Arms, and Mr. Gwalter Frost, the younger, assistant to the 
Secretary, did this day take the engagement following: 'I being 
nominated by this Councill to bee, for the yeare to come, do promise 
in the sight of God, that through his grace I will be faithful in the 
performance of the trust committed unto mee ; and not reveale or 
disclose any thing, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, that shall 
be debated or resolved upon in the Councill, without the command^ 
direction, or allowance of the Councill." 

" 1650. — March 30. Ordered, that it be recommended to the Lords 
Commissioners of the Great Scale, to give order for the preparing of a 
commission to Mr. Richard Bradshaw, who is to be employed resident 
from this Commonwealth to the senate of Hamburgh, according to 
the order of Parhament, 'That a credential letter be likewise prepared 
for him by Mr. Milton.' 

" 1650.— May 6. Ordered, that Mr. Milton doe attend the Lords 
Commissioners of the Great Scale, with the papers given in by Dr. 
Walsall, concerning the goods of /e/os de se : to whom it is referred, 
to take such course therein, for the advantage of the Commonwealth, 
as they shall think fitt. 

" 1650. — June 14. Ordered, that Mr. Milton shall have a warrant 
to the trustees and contractors, for the sale of the king's goods, for the 
furnishing of his lodging at Whitehall with some hangings.* 

" 1651.— March 27. Ordered, That the letters that are to be sent 
to the ambassadour of Spain, shall be sent unto him by Mr. Milton. 

"1651.— March 28. Ordered, That Mr. Milton doe translate 
the Intercursus Magnus, which he is to have from Sir Henry Vane. 

" 1651. — April 4. Ordered, That such despatches as come to this 
Councill from foreigne parts, in any foreigne tongue, are to be trans- 
lated for the use of the Councill. 

"1651. — April 10. Ordered, that Mr. Vaux be sent unto, to let 
him know that he is to forbeare the removing Mr. Milton out of his 
lodgings in Whitehall, until Sir Henry Mildmay and Sir Gilbert Pick- 
ering shall have spoken to the committee concerning that businesse. 

" 1651. — April 23. Ordered, that the paper, now read, to be sent 

* The copy of this warrant is inserted after this order, bearing date June 18, 
1650. " These are to will and require you forthwith, upon sight hereof, to de- 
liver unto Mr. John Milton, or to whom he shall appoint, such hangings as 
shall be sufficient for furnishing his lodgings at Whitehall, of the late king's goods. 

" To the Trustees and Contractors.'' 



EXTRACTS FROM COUNCIL BOOK. 297 

to the minister of Portugal, bee translated into Latin ; and'the English 
copie to be signed by Mr. Frost, and sent unto him. *» 

1651.— May 16. "Ordered, That Mr. Milton doe repaire to the 
publique minister of Portugal!, and desire of him, from the Councill, 
a lyst of the names of such persones as hee desires to carrie with him 
as his retinue, that the same may be affixed to his passe. 

"1651. — May 30. Ordered, that Mr. Milton doe translate the 
petition of Alderman Dethiek, and the letter of the Councill to the 
Spanish ambassador in Latin, that the same may be sent to the said 
ambassador, according to former order. 

"1651. — June 11. Ordered, that Lieutenant-General Fleetwood, 
Sir John Trevor, Mr. Alderman Allen, and Mr. Chaloner, or anie 
two of them, be a committee, to goe from this Councill, to the Com- 
mittee of Parliament for Whitehall, to acquaint them with the case of 
Mr. Milton, in regard of their positive orders for his spedie remove 
out of his lodgings at "Whitehall ; and to endeavour with them, that 
the said Mr. Milton may bee continued where hee is, in regard of 
the employment which he is in to the Councill, which necessitates 
him to reside neere the Councill." 

From June till December, 1651, no entry relating to him occurs in 
the Council book. On the 19th of the latter month it is ordered, 
" That Mr. Milton be continued Secretarie for Forreigne Languages to 
this Councill for the yeare to come.''' In this interval of six months he 
was suffering under the approach of total blindness. Notwithstand- 
ing we find, 

" 1651-2. — Jan. 2. Ordered, that Mr. Milton do prepare a letter 
in Latin, the substance of what was now read here in English, to be 
sent to the Duke of Tuscany, to be brought to the Councill, to be 
there read, for the approbation of the Councill. 

" 1651-2. — Jan. 23. Ordered, that Mr. Milton doe make a trans- 
lation of the paper this day sent into the Councill, from the Lords 
Ambassadors of the High and Mighty Lords the States-Generall of 
the United Provinces ; which the Committee of Foreign Affairs are 
to take into consideration, and prepare an answer thereto, to be re- 
ported to the Councill. 

" 1651-2.— March 3. Ordered, that the letter now read, which is 
prepared to be sent to the queen of Sweden, along with the ag:ent in- 
tended to be sent thither, be humbly represented to the Parliament ; 
and the Lord Commissioner Whitelocke is desired to doe it accor- 
dingly, and that the copie of this letter be translated into Latine. 

" 1651-2. — March 8. Ordered, that the remainder of the articles 
to be ofiered to the British Ambassadors, which were not taken up 
this day, be taken up to-morrow in the afternoon, the first business. 



29S EXTRACTS FROM COUNCIL BOOK. 

" That soe many of the articles as are already passed, bee sent to 
Mr. Milton, to be translated into Latine. 

"1651-2.— March 9. Ordered, that the articles now read, in an- 
swer to the thirty-six articles offered to the Council) by the Dutch Am- 
bassadours, be translated into Latine by Thursday next, in the after- 
noon. 

*'I652. — March 31. Ordered, that the paper now prepared to be 
given, in answer to the Spanish Ambassadour, bee approved, trans- 
lated, signed, and sent to him. 

"That Mr. Milton doe translate the said paper, out of Enghsh 
into Latine, to be sent along, as a copie. 

" 1652. — April 7. Ordered, that the answer to the King of Den- 
marke, now read, be approved of, and translated into Latine by Mr. 
Weekerlyn. 

"1653. — April 15. Ordered, that the paper now read, to be sent 
unto the Dutch Ambasabour, be approved of, and sent to Mr. Mil- 
ton, to be translated into Latine. 

"1652.— April 21. Ordered, that the Latine letter, now read, to 
be sent to the Duke of Savoy, be approved, fair written, signed, and 
sent, and delivered to the parties concerned. 

"1,652. — April 27. Ordered, that the paper which was read, in an- 
swer to the last papers from the Dutch Ambassadours, be approved 
of, fair written, and signed. 

" That the Latine translation of the paper now read, be approved, 
and sent along with the other. 

" 1652. — April 28. Ordered, that the paper now read, to be given to 
the Dutch iVmbasssdours by the commissioner appointed to treat with 
them, be approved of; and that it bee translated into Latine, the Eng- 
lish copie signed, and both Latine and English copie are to be kept 
until they shall be called for by the Lord Commissioner Whitelocke. 

" 1652. — May 26. Ordered, that the answer to the paper delivered 
unto the Commissioners of the Councill, appointed on that behalfe, 
by Monsieur Appleborn, publique minister of the Glueen of Sweden, 
now reported to the^Councill from the Committee of Forreigne affairs, 
be translated into Latine, and humbly presented to Parliament for 
their approbation. 

" 1652. — July 6. Ordered, that the articles now read, and reported 
from the Committee of Forreigne affairs, in answer to the proposals 
of the Danish Ambassadours ; and also the articles prepared to be 
given to the said Ambassadours from the Councill, bee approved of 
and translated into Latine. 

" 1652,— July 13. Ordered, that Mr. Thurloe doe appoint fit per- 



EXTRACTS FROM COUNCIL BOOK. 29^ 

sons to translate the P|p:liament's declaration into Latine, French, 
and Dutch. 

" 1652. — July 26. Memorandum. Send to Mr. Dugard to speak 
with Mr. MiLTOK, concerning the printing of the Declaration. 

" Mem. Send to Mr. Milton the order, made on Lord's Day last 
was se'nnight, concerning Dr. Walker, 

" 1652.— July 29. Ordered, that a copie of the Declaration of Par- 
liament concerning the business of the Dutch, be sent to each of the 
Ambassadours and publique ministers in towne, alsoe to the publique 
ministers of this Commonwealth abroad. ^ 

" 1652. — Aug. 10. Ordered, that the paper now read, in answer to 
the paper of the Spanish Ambassadour, be approved of, translated 
into Latine, and sent to tlie Lord Ambassadour of Spain, by Sir Oli- 
ver Fleming. 

" 1652. — October 1. Ordered, that the answer now read, to be 
givt* to the Danish Ambassadours from the Councill, be approved 
of; and tii»f jt be translated into Latine, and sent to the said Ambas- 
sadour. 

" 1652. Oct. 7. Oiaore(j^ tliat the paper, this day given into the 
Councill by the Lord Ambc.,«adour from the King of Portugal, be 
translated by Mr. Milton into En^iigh^ and brought into the Qjpun- 
cill to-morrow afternoone. 

" 1652. — Oct. 21. Ordered, that the paper no.r ,.gad to be sent to 
the Portuguese Ambassadour, bee approved of, bee v^^nslated into 
Latine, and carried to the said ambassadour by Sir Oliver Tlemino- 
master of the ceremonies. 

" 1652. — Oct. 22. Ordered, that the paper signed by Mr. Speaker, 
to bee sent to the Dutch Ambassadour, bee translated into Latine, 
and sent unto them by Sir Oliver Fleming. 

1652. — Oct. 28. Ordered, that the paper now read to the Councill, 
to be given into the Portugal Ambassadour to-morrow in the afternoon 
by the Committee of the Councill appointed to that purpose, be trans- 
lated into Latine, and delivered by them to the said Ambassadour. 

1652. — Nov. 3. Ordered, that the letter now read, which is to bee 
sent to the King of Denmark, be approved of and translated into La- 
tine, and offered to Mr. Speaker, bee signed by him ; and the Lord 
President desired to offer it to him. 

" 1652.— Nov. 19. Ordered, that the paper now read at the Coun- 
cill, in answer to the paper delivered into the Councill from the Por- 
tugal Ambassadour, bee approved of and translated into Latine, and 
be delivered by the Committee to the Portugal Ambassadour. 

" 1652.— Dec. 1. Ordered, that Mr. jMilton be continued in the 
employment he had last yeare, and have the same allowance for it as he had 
the last yeare," 



300 EXTRACTS FROM COUNCIL BOOK. r-;;^.. ,- " ^ 

Milton had now wholly lost his sight. Mr. Philip Meadowes was 
appointed, in October, 1652, to assist him as Latin Secretary. 

" 1653. — Nov. 3. Ordered, that Mr. John Milton doe remayne in the 
same capacity he xvas in to the last Cowicill, and that he have the same al- 
loioancefor it as formerly, 

" 1653-4. — Ordered, that Friday next, in the afternoon, be assigned 
for receiving from Mr. Secretary Thurloe, what he shall offer respect- 
ing an establishment of the clerks and officers to attend the Councill. 

" 1653-4 — Feb. 3. According to an order of Wednesday last, Mr. 
Secretary Thurloe did this day present to the Councill an establish- 
ment of under-clerks and officers for attending and despatch of the af- 
fairs of the Councill, viz. 

"Mr. Philip Meadowes, Latin Secretary, at per annum £200 
" The Sergeant at Arms, at twenty shillings per deim £365 
"Mr. Gualter Frost, Treasurer to the Council's contin- 
gencies, at per annum £40^ 

" Mr. Milton. [No salary is specified.] 
" Seven under-clerks, &c. 

" 1655. — Jpriin. That theformeryearlii^^(i^'yofMr. John Milton, oj 
two hundred eighty-eight pounds, ^c j^rmerly charged in the CounciWs 
conHHmgencies, he reduced to otic i^^ndred and fifty pounds per annum, and 
paid to him during his lif^ out ojhis Highness''-^ Exchequer. 

It was after thi"' -i^iiLTON wrote the Letters of State in the name of 
the Protectr^j respecting the Duke of Savoy's persecution of the Wal- 
denses In 1657 the celebrated Andrew Marvell was associated with 
hj»i in the office of Latin Secretary. His salary was the same as 
Milton's. 

The following order of Oliver Cromwell, dated 1653-4, relates to 
the salaries of the servants of the Councill. Among others, it is said, 
" Mr. John Milton, for halfe a year e, from 4th of July to the 1st. of Jan. 
last inclusive, at 155. lOhd. per diem, £144. 9s. Zd. 

1659. — Oct. 25. A similar warrant, after the death of the Protec- 
tor, for the payment of the Council of State's contingencies, to the 
22d Oct. 1659. 

"At £200. per annum each. 

"John Milton £86 12 

" Andrew Marvell £86 12 0'' 

" This accords with Philip's statement. " A little before the king's 
coming over, he was sequestered from his office of Latin Secretary, 
and the salary thereunto belonging.^* 



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